Sixth year
by Ronjanade
Summary: The summer after his fifth year Harry starts seeing strange visions, on top of that he needs to grow up, get stronger and find a way to get rid of Voldemort for once and for all. And maybe find himself a family in the progress. preHBP
1. Chapter 1

**Author notes:**

After reading far too many fanfics on one day I couldn't sleep and this story popped into my head and wouldn't leave me alone. I'm still not entirely sure where to it's heading and I probably shouldn't put this on the internet before I do, but I simply couldn't wait.

This is my very first story and will no doubt have a lot of mistakes, especially spelling and grammar mistakes as English is not my native language. So please, if you read this story, review! I really want to improve my writing but for that I need your opinion, and please don't just tell me it sucks but tell me why and how I can improve it.

Thanks!

I don't own Harry Potter, it belongs to J.K Rowling. I'm not making any profit, yada yada yada. This story is a continuation of the fifth book and disregards book six.

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**1. Nightmares and visions **

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"_Is that the best you can do?"_

_The man stood proud and defiantly while he mocked the woman in front of him. But his expression quickly changed to shock and confusion when the woman hurled another hex at him, slamming across his chest._

_For a moment the world seemed to freeze as the man stumbled at the edge of dead. _

_Then he toppled backwards._

_As in slow motion he fell through the sinister looking veil, eyes still wide and confused. His mouth seemed to form a strangled scream, before he disappeared forever._

"SIRIUS! NO! SIRIUS!"

"SHUT UP, YOU LITTLE FREAK! Decent people are trying to sleep here!"

Harry Potter sat up with a start as his uncle gave another loud "BANG!" on the door to make his point.

Harry's breath came out in short uneven gasps and he looked wildly around, as if expecting something to come leaping out of the shadows and attack him. He put his hands against his thumping heart and tried desperately to calm down. Tears were starting to prickle in his eyes and he quickly turned around and buried his head in his pillow.

He would not cry. He would not cry.

He punched his pillow as hard as possible, he would not cry, dammit!

Vaguely he heard his uncle go back to bed, muttering about ungrateful brats disrupting his much needed sleep.

It had been 4 days. 4 days since he last saw his friends. 4 days since his last decent meal.

4 days since his uncle had locked him up in his bedroom again, claiming it was for Harry's own safety.

Only 4 days from the long, long summer holiday had passed, and already he was losing his mind.

His desk was littered with sympathetic and concerned letters from his friends. He hadn't even bothered to read them yet, let alone reply, even though he knew he should. Not only to stop the Order of the Phoenix from sending someone to check up on him, but also to tell Dumbledore about the strange things he had been seeing lately.

Strange flashes of something that never made any sense and were steadily followed by an head splitting headache. It had happened three times now, at random moments of the day, each lasting a little bit longer. His scar didn't hurt afterwards but still Harry was pretty damn sure it had something to do with Voldemort.

There was a rustling sound coming from the window and when Harry looked up he saw his faithful owl Hedwig flying in gracefully.

"Hey girl," he whispered, "You've got another letter for me?"

Hedwig nipped his finger affectionately and dropped a crumpled piece of parchment on Harry's lap.

Harry sighed as he looked at the parchment, he knew he was being rather selfish, the least he could do was let them know he was alright. He owed that to his friends, especially after the mess he made in the department of mysteries.

He quickly unrolled the parchment before his thoughts would stray in _that_ particular direction again.

The letter was short and to the point.

_Harry James Potter!_

_If you won't respond to this letter right away,_

_I will find a way to come over to your place _

_and throttle you!_

_Love, Hermione_

Harry smiled slightly at the threat, still it wasn't really something he expected Hermione to write, she must be really agitated.

Hedwig stared sternly at him with her big amber eyes.

"Yeah, yeah, I know, I'll have to answer her."

He made his way over to his desk, but before he reached it his knees buckled and the room started to spin around and around with a sickening feeling of recognition.

_Bright colors and dancing lights_

_A tree_

_A big tree, looming over him_

_It was green_

_Green with red_

_Red blood trickling down_

_A voice_

_A tender loving voice_

_Whispering_

"_You look good in red"_

_A child laughing_

_No_

_Not laughing_

_Crying_

_Crying in the cold_

_So so cold..._

He was lying on the the floor.

When he tried to get up he was struck with such an intense headache he fell back down.

Groaning pitifully he curled up and buried his head in his hands. The pain seemed to worsen every time.

After a while the headache faded to just a dull throbbing pain and he managed to get up, using his desk as support. Blearily he grabbed a piece of parchment and managed to scribble something down before he collapsed on the bed. He knew it would take at least an hour before he would be able to move around normally again. These visions or whatever they were, always sapped all his energy.

"Can you bring that to Dumbledore?" He asked his owl, nodding in the direction of his desk, too worn out to even raise his arm and point.

At Hedwig's confirming hoot he finally allowed himself to fall in a deep sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

**2. Of owls and phoenix'**

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Albus Dumbledore sighed tiredly and removed his glasses to rub his tired eyes.

He hadn't had a decent night of sleep in two days and now had to listen as two of his best order members squabbled like little children.

"I think," he finally interrupted the argument when it seemed Jonathan Merryton was about to blow steam out of his ears, "that is quite enough. There is no point worrying about it now, not until we know more."

"But headmaster...," Jonathan protested.

Albus raised his hand to stop him, "furthermore, I think that we all could do with some rest. A good night sleep is the best way to clear ones head."

There were relieved sighs from around him as the other order members started to gather their things and leave.

Suddenly there was a loud screeching sound as something came barreling through the chimney, landing with a thud in the ashes.

Albus immediately jumped up and gently picked up the once snowy-white owl, now covered in blood and ashes.

Next to him he heard Molly gasp, "Albus, is that...?"

He nodded grimly while carefully examining the dead owl. She had been hit with so many curses it was a miracle she had even managed to get through the chimney before collapsing. And somehow the brave owl had managed to keep her message save.

"You don't think Harry..." Molly asked worriedly, wringing her hands and looking sorrowfully at the bird.

"No, if Harry had been hurt the wards would have warned us. She must have been attacked on her way here."

He unfolded the scrap of parchment tied to the owl, it was small and barely readable.

been seeing things, visions, whatever, head hurts, no scar though, keeps getting worse HP

The way it was written alone was enough to worry Albus, he knew Harry wouldn't write something like this unless something was seriously wrong.

"What does it say, Albus? Is Harry alright?" Molly asked while trying to read along over his shoulder.

Albus sighed, how did that boy got himself into so much trouble all the time? He wished he wasn't so tired.

"I'm going to check up on Harry," he told Molly, "I'm sure he is fine."

He used his magic to call out for Fawkes, the beautiful phoenix tied to him. With his mind he showed Fawkes a picture of where he needed to go and let the flames engulf him.

Fawkes fire normally always gave him an energy boost, but this time Albus stumbled slightly when they landed in Harry's room. _I'm getting too old for this._

The room was a right mess but Albus ignored it as he made his way to Harry who was lying on the bed. He seemed fine, Albus thought, peaceful even. Gently he caressed Harry across his brow, it was a shame to wake him really, especially considering Albus didn't exactly have good news. He winced slight, thinking of the dead bird back at Grimmauld place.

"I wish I could spare you all of this," he whispered.

Fawkes let out a soft thrill and flew over at Albus' shoulder, a single tear fell down at the old man's head.

"Silly bird," Albus murmured, "I'm not hurt, just..."

He never got to finish that though, as suddenly everything felt really heavy and he slumped forward. He was so tired...

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Harry woke to aunt Petunia's screeching and constant rapping on the door.

"Wake up boy! You are going to paint the shed today, wake up!"

Paint? Harry thought groggily, still half asleep, but than he remembered. Aunt Marge would be staying over for a week and the Dursley's wanted everything in tip-top shape.

Uncle Vernon had ordered Harry to paint the shed, he could have gotten out of it by owling the order but he hadn't want to bother them with something so childish. Besides, he didn't mind painting all that much anyway.

When he tried to get up he realized something heavy was lying on his chest. Blinking he stared at the head full of untidy gray-white hair lying on top of him.

"What the...!" Harry exclaimed, sitting up quickly and forcing the head, and the body attached to it, to tumble to the ground. He gaped as his headmaster sat blearily on the floor, his glasses crooked and his hair sticking to all sides.

"Did you hear me boy!" His aunt screeched again, "I said wake up!" She started to shake the door-handle.

"Alright! I'm up, I'm up!" Harry quickly shouted back, the last thing he needed was for aunt Petunia to get in.

"Professor Dumbledore?" He hesitantly asked, the headmaster's gaze settled on him.

"Harry?" He vaguely murmured, but than his eyes cleared as he finally seemed to come back to awareness.

"Ah, yes. Yes of course," he chuckled a bit, "I'm terribly sorry about this, dear boy. It seems I was more tired than I realized," he gave Harry a lopsided smile, "if you would be so kind as to help me up? It seems my old bones don't agree with sleeping on the ground."

Harry offered his hand to professor Dumbledore who got up with a groan and the sound of popping bones.

At that moment Harry's door slammed open and Uncle Vernon burst in.

"What the hell is taking you so long, boy! Petunia asked you to come down ages ago, don't think..."

But the rest of uncle Vernon's rant was lost in a roaring sound surrounding Harry as the room started to spin again, _no not again_, he thought desperately, but it was no use.

Singing

Happy singing

joyful singing

Green and red and red and green

"_It looks so pretty with your eyes," the wolf told him _

They sang of peace and blood, of love and pain

Blood-red tears under a tree of green

When he came back to himself he was somewhere else.

Harry had just enough time to register he was at Grimmauld place 12 before the pain started.

It was worse than ever before, like someone was ramming a stake through his head. He couldn't stop a whimper from escaping. _It will be over soon_, he thought desperately, clawing at his head, _please, please let it be over soon_.

Someone was holding him and murmuring nonsense in his ear. Harry let out a small sigh when something cold was gently pressed against his forehead. His hands were pulled down, away from his head in a strong but gentle grasp and slowly the pain dulled to a more bearable ache.

Around him people were talking rather loudly, he tried to focus on what they were saying but soon gave up and instead snuggled closer to whomever was holding him. It was nice to be hold like this, he thought sleepily. Much nicer than being cold.


	3. Chapter 3

**Author notes:**

Aaaaaaaaah! Nobody has reviewed! I thought at first it was simply because nobody had read my story yet but than I saw it had 10 hits! 10 people who saw it but didn't even bother saying what they thought of it! Whaaaaaaaaaaa! --tears hair out in frustration--

Alright, alright, I'm probably being too impatient again, sigh, oh well here is a new chapter, maybe this will get a response...

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3. Family and friends

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Ginny sneaked past the hallway, trying not to make any sound. They still hadn't managed to take off the portrait of Sirius' mother and they were thinking of simply destroying the entire wall she was hanging at. The order members were all rather uptight these days and Mrs Black sudden screams in the middle of the night (or any other part of the day for that matter) weren't helping.

Ginny tiptoed up the stairs and peaked around the corner.

Mrs Weasley was standing guard in front of Harry's door, as expected.

There was a sudden loud crash from one of the other room followed by a high girlish scream and loud cursing. Ginny grinned when her mother jumped up and stormed inside her brothers' room.

"What's going on! What are you lot doing now! I told you to be quiet! _Why _is there a giant pink spider in you room? "

Ginny tuned out her mother's screeching and quickly sprinted to Harry's door, not stopping until she was save inside.

"Harry?" She asked breathlessly.

It had only been a few hours since professor Dumbledore had appeared in the kitchen with an unresponsive Harry in his arms. His eyes had been open but he hadn't seem to notice anything and his eyes had been a creepy milky-gray color, Ginny couldn't remember ever seeing something as scary as that.

After the shock had worn of Mrs Weasley had ordered "the kids" to go upstairs, of course they had all refused and managed to stay long enough to see that Harry was obviously in terrible pain. He had writhed on the floor as if suffering from the cruciatus curse.

Nobody had told them what had happened and Mrs Weasley had forbidden them to see Harry, claiming he needed his rest. But Ginny wasn't a Weasley for nothing.

After the scene in the kitchen and her mother's obvious concern, Ginny had half expected Harry to look terrible or at the very least be unconscious, but Harry was sitting happily in his bed, petting Hedwig and apart from some bags under his eyes he looked fine.

"Hey Gin," he greeted her, giving her that special 'Harry-smile' that used to make her go wonky in the knees, "I was wondering when someone would finally visit me..."

He was cut off when Ginny all but squealed and pounced on Harry, earning her a disgruntled look from Hedwig who was pushed aside rather roughly.

"You're awake! They told us you were still sleeping and needed your rest and we shouldn't bother you and so on, and all this time you were awake!"

Ginny sat back and frowned at Harry, "What is going on anyway? You look like you haven't slept in days, or eaten for that matter." It was true, Harry had lost a lot of weight in those few days he had been at the Dursley's.

"I wish I knew what is going on," Harry sighed, "I think I might be losing my mind."

She frowned worriedly at him, "what do you mean?"

Harry shrugged and avoided her eyes, he plucked at the blanket until Hedwig nudged his hands and he started patting her again, causing her to croon happily. Ginny put her hands on her hips and adopted the famous Mrs Weasley glare, the one that always made her brothers quiver in fear.

"You were in pain, we all saw it, so something is obviously wrong." Than she paused as she realized something, "or is this one of those things you can only discuss with Ron and Hermione? Just because I don't quite know you as good as they do, doesn't mean you can't tell me anything, I thought you saw me as a friend. Or am I to young to join the 'golden trio'?" She wished that last part hadn't come out that bitterly, she didn't want him to think she was jealous, 'cause she wasn't, not really.

He blinked surprised at her, "No! It isn't like that at all!" He protested, "I just don't know..." he paused and cocked his head, "did you hear that?"

Ginny narrowed her eyes, she was pretty sure he only said that to distract her and was about to yell at him when the door opened and professor Dumbledore stepped in. His eyes started to twinkle when he saw her, "ah, miss Weasley, I should have known you would be here after you most adamant protests about leaving Mr Potter alone."

Ginny blushed as she remembered how she had carried on, shouting and stamp footing, in front of him and the other Order members. She cringed when she saw who professor Dumbledore followed. "Ginevra Julia Weasley! I thought I told you to let him rest!" Her mother fumed at her before turning to Dumbledore, "I'm so sorry for this headmaster, I don't know what came over her, disturbing Harry like this."

"Now now, Molly, I'm certain she meant well. Friendships _are _the most important things after all, especially in times like these." Mrs Weasley huffed and shot another dark look at Ginny but than she looked at Harry and her eyes softened. "Are you alright, dear? Can I get you anything? I have some nice chickensoup." She said all of this in a soft soothing voice, as if Harry was about to fall apart or would have a breakdown if you talked to loud. Ginny fervently wished she wouldn't and was pretty sure Harry hated it as well.

But than Mrs Weasley gasped as if suddenly noticing something, she stared in shock at Harry. "Albus, is that...? But how?" Quizzically Ginny looked at Harry as well but she didn't see anything odd. Professor Dumbledore didn't give her mother an answer and instead ushered her and Ginny gently but firmly out of the room.

"I'm certain Harry will love some of you wonderfully chickensoup once we are finished talking, in fact, I wouldn't mind a nice cup of soup myself." With that he closed the door and left Ginny alone with her irate mother.

She braced herself for a lecture but her mother surprised her by talking calmly.

"Ginny dear, I realize you were worried about Harry, but I really must ask you to listen to me next time, we did have our reasons to keep you out of Harry's room." She said sternly.

"Like what, mum?" Ginny broke in angrily, "what could possibly be your reason to keep us away from Harry? He was in terrible pain and than you whisked him away to some room and nobody told us anything! And you were all whispering and looking like someone was about to die and..." she broke off when she felt frustrated tears threatening to spill. "We are his friends! No, we are his family! Did you really expect me to sit back and wait until you deem us worthy enough to gives us some information, while Harry might be..." Angrily she wiped at her tears, she hadn't meant to cry! Now her mother would just see her as some emotional little girl and not take her seriously.

"Oh Ginny," Mrs Weasley whispered, "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean..." She steeped forward and engulfed Ginny in a hug.

"I just..." The girl sniffled against her mothers chest, "I'm just scared after what happened to S-Sirius."

"I know, I'm scared as well."


	4. Chapter 4

**4. Bad news **

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"Ginny?" She broke away from her mother at the hesitant voice and saw Ron standing in the hallway, ghostly white. Slightly behind him stood Hermione, who was covering her mouth with her hand looking terrified.

"Why are you crying? Did something happen?" Ron asked urgently, "is Harry alright?"

"Harry is fine," Ginny hastily said, wiping away her tears, "I just saw him, he's fine."

Hermione let out a tiny relieved squeak, dropping her hand and relaxing slightly.

"Then why are you crying?" Ron asked suspiciously.

"It was nothing, I was just being stupid," Ginny waved it off.

Ron made a face and muttered, "girls," under his breath. Hermione swatted his arm playfully.

"So can we see Harry now?" She excitedly asked, bouncing slightly on her feet.

"I'm afraid not Hermione," Mrs Weasley said.

"But..." Ron started to protest but fell silent at a look from his mother.

"I realize now that I should not have let you all in the dark, I should have told you what we know, which is unfortunately very little. We have no idea yet what could be wrong with Harry, but professor Dumbledore suspects You-Know-How is somehow attacking Harry's mind. It is possible that he is trying to weaken Harry, so he can posses him. We can't take the risk that you are alone with Harry if You-Know-How really manages to take control over him. So I ask you all not to seek him out until we have cleared this matter." She gave the teens a stern look, "is that understood?"

"Posses him?" Ron repeated numbly, "is that even possible? I mean You-Know-Who is far away and Harry is here so how..."

"Come on, Ron" Hermione didn't let him finish but dragged him away, "we're going to the library."

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Harry listened as Dumbledore ushered Ginny and Mrs Weasley out of the room. He hoped he could get out of this house soon, even Privet Drive was better than this dreary place that smelled of dust and misery.

Dumbledore turned around and in one fluent motion he pulled his wand and shouted some unknown spell at Harry. The boy instinctively raised his arms to protect himself but the spell struck Hedwig instead and the owl fell lifelessly to the ground.

"What the hell!" Harry exclaimed, quickly scooping up the motionless bird and cradling her protectively against his chest.

"Calm down, child," Dumbledore said sharply, "That is _not _your owl, please let go of it, it might be dangerous."

"What are you talking about?"

Dumbledore took a piece of parchment out of his pocket and showed it to Harry, "this is the letter you wrote, yes?"

"Yeah," Harry said secretly wondering if Dumbledore finally was going senile.

"Your owl brought this to me, however on the way here she got attacked."

"Attacked?" Harry repeated in alarm, "did she got hurt?"

"She got hit with several dark curses, I am sorry to say, Harry, that your brave owl didn't make it, she died."

Harry stared disbelieving at Dumbledore, Hedwig was dead? He shook his head, "no. No, I don't believe you, you're wrong. She's not dead, she can't be dead, I was petting her just a couple of minutes ago. You have to be wrong." The last part came out a bit desperately, but he refused to believe Hedwig had died. Dumbledore inclined his head, "maybe I am indeed wrong, however the change is slim. To be certain I need to examine your owl, she wont be hurt, I promise you. Please hand her over to me." Shaking a bit Harry gave Hedwig to Dumbledore, who waved his hand over the unmoving bird, causing her to shimmer and than disappear entirely.

"Where did you sent her to?" Harry asked anxiously.

"Don't worry, child, she won't be harmed." The headmaster regarded Harry carefully, "now on to more pressing matters. Harry please tell me everything about those attacks of yours."

Harry shook his head, feeling numb he pulled his knees closer and hugged himself, "there isn't much to tell," he murmured against his knees, "I just get these weird flashes, images, and after that I always get a terrible headache. This was the fifth time it happened, they keep getting worse." He swallowed, he definitely didn't want to go through that pain again.

"Fifth time!" Dumbledore exclaimed, "and you didn't think to sent me a note sooner!"

"The pain wasn't that bad in the beginning and my scar never hurt," Harry tried to explain, "I never saw anything important, I didn't want to bother you with it."

Dumbledore sighed, "I need to know these things, Harry. Anything out of the ordinary has to be reported to me right away," he leaned forward, "do you understand this?"

Harry shifted uncomfortable, "I guess."

Dumbledore looked at him sadly, making him even more uncomfortable, "what exactly do you see in those visions?" He gently asked.

"That's the problem, I can't remember, the more I think about it the more it slips away, I only remember feeling very cold."

"Well it seems our only option is to start with you occlumency lessons once again, maybe that will help."

Harry grimaced, that was the last thing he needed. "But my scar never hurt, it might not even be Voldemort," he argued, even while he knew that it could only _be_ Voldemort, unless of course he really was losing his mind.

"Nevertheless it seems the best course of action at the moment, it certainly can't do any harm."

Harry wasn't so sure about that, "are _you_ going to teach me this time?" _Please say yes, please say yes, _he silently pleaded.

"No I don't think that is such a good idea."

Harry sagged on the bed, why did these things always happen to him? _Why_? "So it's Snape again?" He asked bitterly.

"Professor Snape, Harry," Dumbledore said sternly.

"Whatever," Harry grumbled, "does that mean I have to stay here for the rest of the holiday?"

"No you still need to stay longer at your aunt's house to strengthen the blood wards once again. However, after seeing your recent attack I think it is best if someone will come with you to look after you, in case something happens."

Harry gaped at the headmaster, "no offense professor, but are you out of your mind? Sending a wizard to live with the Dursley's is a very, very bad idea."

"On the contrary, I think it's a very good idea," Dumbledore's eyes were twinkling again and Harry took that as a bad sign.

"Please tell me you're not going to send Snape," Harry said in dread.

"Professor Snape, Harry"

"Oh god," Harry groaned, "I'm so dead."

Dumbledore chuckled, "a bit melodramatic don't you think, dear boy? However you will be pleased to know that I agree with you, making Severus live with three muggles and his least liked student in one house is not a very good idea. I was actually thinking of asking Remus."

"Professor Lupin?" Harry cheered up slightly, "yeah he's a good choice."

"I thought you would think so yes. Now, I will leave you to the care of Molly and her chickensoup."


	5. Chapter 5

**Author notes:**

Already a new chapter, Yay! 

Still no reviews though, sigh.

As you might have noticed, I'm very bad when it comes to thinking of titles, the title of the whole story sucks big time as do most chapter titles. I really couldn't think of anything this time, not even a bad title, so I went for a weird title, which might have a change of at least being slightly humorous. Maybe someone out there can think of a better title? And while you're at it, you might as well review. Right? -smiles hopeful-

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**5. Of missing eyeballs and pink cuddly spiders**

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Harry tumbled ungracefully out of the fireplace, tripped over a loose carpet and would have fallen headfirst on a small table if Tonks hadn't grabbed his arm.

"And I thought _I_ was bad at traveling with floo," She said jokingly while brushing away the ashes on Harry's clothes.

Mrs Figg's house still looked and smelled exactly the same, on the walls hang the same old photo's from all Mrs Figg's many cats.

"Hello Harry dear," Mrs Figg said pleasantly, "how are you doing?"

"No time for chit-chat Ara," Moody grumbled, "We need to get Potter save and sound back with those muggles, but there is someone out there under an invisibility cloak, and it ain't one of our guys. We need a distraction." He said that last bit with a meaningful look at Mrs Figg.

"Oh, no!" She snapped, "not again! The last time you used Mr Twinkles as distraction the poor dear had a cold for days!"

Moody grumbled something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like, "damn cat is too fat to run anyway."

"What was that?" Mrs Figg sharply demanded, but Moody handily changed the subject.

"I'll go out there and get rid of that fool, wait until my sign and than run as quick as possible to the house," he ordered Tonks, "I've only detected one but who knows how many more there are hiding, so whatever you do, your first priority is to get Potter save, is that clear?"

"Yes, Moody," Tonks sighed exasperated, "you've only said that a thousand times already."

Moody put on his invisibility cloak and disappeared out of sight.

"Tea, anyone?" Mrs Figg asked brightly.

"No thanks, Mrs Figg," Harry answered as politely as possible while feeling like ants were crawling through his stomach. Tonks seemed to notice his discomfort, "no worries, Harry," she said jovially, "Moody can handle it easily, it's probably just the one guy. We have suspected for a while now that someone was watching you, Moody will eat him alive!" She cackled maniacally and Harry forced a smile. He wasn't even thinking about whoever was hiding out there, all he could think of was Remus, his ex-teacher had refused to come, hadn't even bothered with an explanation, hadn't even wanted to see Harry at all. And it hurt, it really hurt even though he should have expected it, after all it was partly Harry's fault that Remus' best friend had died.

Mrs Figg offered Tonks a cup of tea but quickly took it back when the clumsy auror accidentally sloshed hot tea all over a cat. So Tonks started chewing gum instead, while hopping from one foot on another, her hair the usual shocking pink color. Harry absentmindedly wondered how the Dursley's would react when they heard she was going to live with them for the next couple of weeks. He was so absorbed in trying to imagine their reactions he completely missed Moody's sign, until Tonks grabbed his arm and dragged him outside.

"Come on, Harry," Tonks shouted, "hurry up!"

Harry rolled his eyes, he secretly thought she and Moody were slightly overdoing it but dutifully ran faster.

When they had nearly reached the Dursley's door Harry was suddenly roughly grabbed and pulled into a nearby bush. Flailing his arms wildly he managed to hit something firm and warm and after a startled, "ow!" was released. Harry was about to yell for help when Tonks jumped through the bushes, and he finally saw who his ambusher was.

"Merlin, Moody," Tonks panted, "don't ever do that to me again, you nearly scared me to dead!"

"Bah," Moody snarled, "_you_ nearly got Potter killed! What if I was a death-eater, huh? You just let him grab Potter! And Potter!" He rounded on Harry, "you should have your wand ready at all times! Haven't you learned anything over all those years? You were utterly defenseless!"

Moody gave them both stern looks and when they looked properly chastened, he said, "Now help me find my eye."

Tonks blinked, only now noticing Moody only had one eye at the moment, "what happened to it?"

"Potter knocked it out of my socket when he hit me," Moody admitted chagrined, glaring when Tonks started laughing.

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"Tell me what we're looking for again?"

Ron leaned back on his bed, bored of the book he was supposed to be reading and looked at Hermione who was sitting crosslegged on the ground en was deeply absorbed in a small dusty book.

"Hermione?" He asked when she gave no response.

"Hermione," he tried again and sighed when she still didn't answer.

"OI! 'MIONE!"

Startled the girl looked up, "What? You don't have to shout."

Ron rolled his eyes, "what are you reading that is so interesting?"

Hermione colored slightly, "I... Nothing."

Ron got up and tried to grab the book from her, which she quickly hid behind her back. After a brief struggle in which Ron got slapped with a pillow several times he managed to obtain her book.

"Soulmates and how to recognize them. How to find true love." He read from the cover, he gave Hermione a disbelieving look, "you've got to be kidding me. You drag me off to the library to supposedly help Harry and now you're reading this rubbish!"

Hermione blushed hotly and quickly grabbed the book back, "it's _not_ rubbish! It's actually very interesting, did you know...?"

"Unless it will help Harry I don't care," Ron interrupted her annoyed, "_you_ were the one who said we needed to research everything we could find about mind control, remember? Although I can't see what we could possibly found that Dumbledore doesn't already know."

"Even professor Dumbledore doesn't know everything, he might have missed something."

"So you're finally admitting Dumbledore isn't all-knowing and perfect?"

Hermione shot him a dark look, "I neversaid he is perfect."

Ron threw himself on the bed again and changed the subject before they would start to fight again.

"I'm getting tired of spitting through these books, they're disgusting, and those pictures in it are even worse," he made a face, "they make me sick just thinking of them."

Hermione shuddered, "I know, but we only have the Black library to look through, we have no choice, not until we're back at Hogwarts."

Suddenly the door opened and a green-haired Ginny slipped in.

"Ugh, she's driving me insane!" She exclaimed, flopping down on the bed next to Ron, a scowl on her face.

"Who?" Hermione absentmindedly asked, absorbed in her book once again.

"Um, Ginny? Are you aware your hair is green?" Ron asked.

"Yeah, it's a side effect from one of those chocolates Fred and George gave me, it should wear of in a couple of hours."

"You willingly and knowingly accepted candy from them?"

"I made a deal with them, they helped me to see Harry by distracting mum if I would play guinea pig for their jokeshop."

"So it was _your_ fault they transfigured my bed in that giant spider!" Ron exclaimed, he scowled at her, "couldn't you have thought of something else?"

Ginny shrugged, "I just asked them to cause a distraction, I didn't know what they were going to do. Besides they didn't do it right anyway, instead of a a hairy, black, flesh-eating spider it was a pink, cuddly one."

"That was even worse!" Ron shuddered, paling at the memory of a giant pink spider trying to cuddle his head.

"So who's driving you crazy?" Hermione asked again.

Ginny made a face, "who do you think? Miss airhead-Heather, I can't stand her!"

"What did she do this time?" Hermione asked, giving Ginny a sympathetic look.

Ron snorted, "you two are just jealous 'cause she's so pretty.

Hermione furiously rounded on him, "I am _not_ jealous of a blond-haired braindead bimbo! I just don't like her!"

"And she's not that pretty anyway," Ginny added, "she just got big boobs."

"Besides, Rose doesn't like her either," Hermione said as if that settled the matter.

There was a knock on the door and a young woman looked in, "did I hear my name? Ah Ginny, here you are. Mr Merryton would like to have a word with you," she winked at Ginny, "I don't think he appreciated the chocolates you gave Heather," her grin turned devilish, "she turned into a slug and than I 'accidentally' stepped on her."

"The stupid cow deserved it," Ginny huffed while Hermione started to giggle uncontrollably.


	6. Chapter 6

**Author notes:**

I've got a review!

Yay! -dances around like mad-

Thank you so much Sazza! You'll be honored forever for being my first ever review! -cuddles Sazza closer-

To Sazza: I know what you're talking about, the Harry/Ginny pairing got a bit ruined for me with all those fics in which Ron and Hermione are shoved to thebackground. I'm definetely not planning on doing that as I adore both Ron and 'Mione. As for the romance, don't expect too much, for now Harry and Ginny will just be friends, maybe later on that will change though.

Anyway, to celebrate my first review I give you two chapters!

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**6. Family secrets**

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"I found him!" Tonks cheered, waving the eye enthusiastically in the air. She tried to get up from the grouched position she had been sitting and collided painfully with the ledge of the open window, "Ow! Shite!"

Harry winced in sympathy, remembering when the same had happened to him a year ago.

"What was that?" A voice came from the living room and uncle Vernon stuck his head out of the window, Harry watched in morbid fascination (as one might watch a car-accident happening) as Tonks tried for a second time to get up, this time colliding with Vernon's beefy, but unfortunately still very hard, chin.

"Ow, Ow!" They cried out simultaneous, "watch where you put your head!" Tonks shouted, glaring at Vernon why rubbing her poor molested head.

"Watch where...?" Vernon spluttered outraged, "how dare you! That comes here uninvited in _my_ garden, hiding out below _my_ window and than you dare to tell me... Wait, what _are_ you doing here?" Vernon did a step back and only now seemed to realize to whom, or rather _what_, he had been yelling at. "You're on of those freaks!" He blustered, "what do you think you're doing? Is this some kind of secret meeting place? _He_ was sitting here too." He stared suspiciously at the flowerbeds, and jumped when Moody suddenly appeared.

"Finally," Moody snapped, roughly grabbing the eye out of Tonks hand and popping in in his socket without even bothering wiping the grass off, "I can't stand walking around with just one eye."

Vernon was looking rather green after Moody's little display and seemed to come to the decision to all together ignore the fact there were any weirdo's at all standing in his backyard, he slammed the window shut and closed the curtains for good measure.

"I still don't understand why we couldn't just sumone that damn eye," Tonks grumbled, still rubbing her head, "and Moody, _please_ go clean your eye, that sound it's making is disgusting."

Moody's eye was indeed making a squishy kind of sound while tolling around, Harry assumed it was a piece of grass stuck on it.

"I told you already, it has all kinds of protection spells on it," Moody said impatiently, "to ensure enemies don't just sumone it right out of my head. Now come on, we've been standing here for way to long, Potter could have been killed a hundred times already."

"What did you do with that guy spying on me, by the way?" Harry asked curiously.

"Bah," Moody grumbled, "he was pathetic, couldn't even produce a proper shield. I sent him to the ministry, the aurors will take care of him."

They arrived once again at the Dursley's door and Tonks happily pushed the doorbell, and kept pushing it, over and over again.

"Yes, yes, I'm coming!" They heard Petunia's voice from the inside. The door opened slowly but was than suddenly slammed shut, with a sound as if someone had thrown himself at the door.

"NO! Don't open the door, Petunia! It's them!"

The Dursley's seemed to have a hushed discussion about what they were going to do now.

Moody narrowed his eyes and seemed about ready to blast open the door when it opened up again.

Petunia pushed her pale head through the tiny opening, "y-yes?"

"Mrs Dursley, we've come to return your nephew in your care," Moody managed to ground out politely, even though the word 'care' was drawn out as if he much rather say something else.

"R-return him?" Petunia squeaked, losing even more color, "b-but we thought... I-I mean, of course, we take him from here. Com on, boy, hurry up."

She grabbed Harry's arm and was about to drag him inside when Moody interfered, "not so fast Mrs Dursley, because of the incident happening yesterday Potter will need constant supervision. That's why Tonks here will come live with you for the next weeks," he showed a feral grin, "hope you don't mind."

Petunia looked like she _did_ mind, in fact she looked like she'd rather dye her own hair pink than let Tonks stay over.

"Hurry up, Petunia!" Vernon hollered on the background and once again Petunia slammed the door shut.

Moody gritted his teeth, "I have had enough of this. MRS DURSLEY!" He roared, "IF YOU DON'T OPEN THIS DOOR RIGHT AWAY, I WILL!"

"Easy, Moody," Tonks tried to calm him, "professor Dumbledore told you to be nice, remember?"

The door swung open again and Vernon appeared in the doorway, Petunia standing behind him.

"Quit that racket!" Vernon hissed, "my sister is staying over and she doesn't know about your kind! And what is this nonsense about _that_," he waved his arm at Tonks, "will stay here? I won't have it, you hear that? I won't have it! This is still _my_ house, you have nothing to say about it!"

"It will be alright, Mr Dursley," Tonks tried to placate him, "I won't cause any trouble and will stay out of your way as much as possible."

Vernon rounded on her, "shut your mouth, you disgusting little fr..."

"Vernon!" Petunia hissed from behind him, "don't make them mad!"

Vernon shut his mouth with an audible snap and fell silent for a moment.

Moody was looking really pissed off now, "she's going to stay here, muggle, whether you like it or not," he glowered at the Dursley's.

"No."

Everybody blinked at the soft statement coming from Petunia, but she seemed to have made up her mind and for the moment had lost her fear for magic.

"Vernon is right," she continued in the same firm voice, "the boy has caused us trouble from the moment he came here, it's time he leaves."

She turned to Moody, "you can tell Dumbledore he is a fool, making the boy stay here. The wards are not strong enough, he is not of my blood."

"What the hell do you mean?" Moody snapped.

Petunia disappeared inside but soon returned with a carefully folded paper.

"There," she said with quiet dignity, giving the paper to Harry, "read that, it's time you know the truth. You may not believe me, but I really did try to protect you, enough is enough though. Don't ever return here."

With that she closed the door with a definitive "bang".

Harry unfolded the paper, it was clearly old and yellowed and seemed to have been folded and refolded many times, still the typing was clear to read.

_Adoption papers on one Lily Ann Noname_

_Biological parents: unknown_

_Date of birth: 17-05-1972_

_Place of birth: Weytown, central hospital_

_Adoptive parents: Daisy Evans, Jack Evans_

_Date of adoption: 05-08-1972_

_This adoption has been witnessed and approved by Mrs Laurens._

Harry gaped at the paper, his mother had been adopted?

Moody plucked it out of his hand and read it with an unreadable expression and than without a word grabbed Harry at his arm and turned to leave.

"Hey!" Tonks shouted, "what does it say? Come on, I wanna know! Wait for me!"


	7. Chapter 7

**Author notes: **

Just a quick note on the so called adoption paper in the last chapter: I have no idea how those are suposed to look like so made the whole thing up. If there's anybody out there who _does_ know, please tell me so I can fix it!

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**7.Friends**

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"Harry!"

Harry "oomphed" when he was jumped by an excited Hermione and stumbled slightly.

"You're alright!" The girl stepped back and gave him a look over, "are you really alright?"

"I'm fine, Hermione," Harry said exasperated, trying to wiggle free from her death-grip.

"Hey mate," he greeted a beaming Ron standing behind Hermione, "you suddenly turned your room into a library?" He asked, indicating the at the piles of books that were littered on the floor and the bed.

"Nah," Ron grinned, "just Hermione being Hermione."

Hermione made Harry sit down on the only book-free spot on the bed, "are you sure you're alright? You look like you haven't been sleeping in days."

"Yes, Hermione," Harry snapped, already fed up with her fussing, "I'm fine."

Thankfully Hermione got the hint and dropped the subject.

Ron threw some books on the floor, ignoring Hermione's protests and sat down as well.

"So what have you two been doing?" Harry asked curiously, "besides reading, that is."

Ron shrugged, "not much really, mum has finally given up on cleaning this house, as soon as you turn your back it turns dusty again, it's like this place is hexed to always stay filthy. Everybody is now busy magically enlarging the house, but we can't help with that. And to make things worse we are now restricted to our rooms and the kitchen, we can't even go to the library without someone to 'watch over us'," he said frustrated.

"You know very well why that is, Ron," Hermione said reproachful, "Rose got attacked by one of the bookcases there, she nearly died!"

"Yeah but she never fought any death-eaters, did she? I bet we could handle that bookcase easily."

"Yes, and get expelled from Hogwarts in the progress," Hermione snapped, "very smart, Ron."

"What did you mean with magically enlarging this place?" Harry quickly asked, before they would start a fight.

"The Order has recruited a lot of new members, and some of them wanted a safe place for their families to live," Hermione explained, "they're enlarging the house so that they can all fit in. They're already living a couple of families on the third floor, but we never get to see them, they have there own place with a kitchen and everything and they're not allowed to come here without good reason, to make sure they don't accidentally hear any information they shouldn't."

"But isn't it really unsafe if all those people know where the Order's headquarter is?"

Hermione shook her head, "they can't tell anything to someone outside of the order, the fidelius charm makes sure of that."

"What about Voldemort?" Harry asked, leaning forward slightly, "have there been any big attacks yet?"

"No," Hermione said, unconsciously lowering her voice, "it has been unnaturally quiet, no attacks or any odd disappearances at all. It really worries the Order, they had expected him to start with a killing-spree once his return was public knowledge, to scare people and remind them how powerful and supposedly unstoppable he is. He must be planning something really big."

Harry sighed frustrated, "so basically nothing has changed, we once again have no idea what he is doing."

"Of course something has changed, Harry," Hermione said, "now everybody believes Voldemort has returned, the Order has gotten a lot of new members thanks to that. And those that aren't in the Order are much better prepared, everybody is brushing up his or her defense skills."

"Is that what you guys have been doing?" Harry asked giving Ron a sympathetic look, he knew exactly how Hermione could be when it came to studying.

"No," Ron admitted, "we're actually trying to help you, we hope we can find some information about possession and stuff."

Hermione rolled her eyes at the word 'stuff' and clarified, "Mrs Weasley told us it is possible Voldemort will try to possess you," she bit her lip, "is-is it true?"

Harry sighed and than told his friends everything about his visions and what Dumbledore had said. He didn't say anything about how his mother might be adopted though, he still wasn't sure what to think of that. After they had returned at Grimmauld place, Tonks had told Harry to go see his friends and than had run off with Moody, probably to tell Dumbledore everything. It seemed unlikely that the paper was false, still it seemed even more unlikely that his aunt knew all along he was not her nephew and only now said anything. A small part of Harry couldn't help but hope that it was true as than there was the small possibility that somewhere there would be some long lost relative. That, more than anything, was what Harry wished for, especially after losing Sirius.

"I don't know about that possessing thing," Harry finished his story, "but Voldemort did manage to sort of take over me in the department of mystery."

"He did?" Hermione gasped, "why didn't you tell us sooner?"

Harry shrugged, "I wasn't exactly in a talkative mood before, was I?"

The door opened and Ginny peaked in, her eyes lighting up when she saw Harry.

"You're back!" She sat down on the floor in front of Harry, leaning against his legs, Ron raised his eyebrow at Harry and seemed to be silently asking him a question, unfortunately Harry had no idea what he meant.

"I overheard mum saying you're gonna stay here," Ginny babbled on, "did the Dursley's really kick you out?"

"Yeah, aunt Petunia finally cracked."

"Good," Ginny said satisfied, "about time you got away from them."

Hermione seemed mildly frustrated about something, but allowed Ginny to led the conversation to less serious topics like quidditch and classes.

"Guys?" A voice interrupted them from outside, "your mother send me to tell you lunch is ready, and you better hurry up or my boys will eat everything."

"Thanks Rose, we're coming," Ginny called back, getting up and offering her hand to Harry to help him up, over her head he saw Ron grinning at him.

Grimmauld place hadn't changed one bit, even the house-elf heads were still hanging on the wall, which reminded Harry, "what happened to Kreacher?" He didn't quite manage to keep the hatred he felt for the treacherous little elf out of his voice and Hermione gave him a wary look.

"Nobody knows, he just disappeared."

"Great," Harry grumbled, "he probably ran straight to the Malfoy's so now they know everything about the Order."

"Professor Dumbledore said it has been taken care off."

Harry shot her a doubtful look, "what did he do, kill Kreacher?"

"Of course he didn't!" Hermione said scandalized.

"Why not? It's probably the only way to make sure Kreacher doesn't rat us out."

"There are other ways," Hermione insisted.

"Last year everybody thought it was safe too," Harry snapped, "we all now how that worked out."

At the pitying look Hermione gave him he started to walk faster until he left her behind and reached the kitchen.

The table was loaded with enough food to feed a small army, but besides Mrs Weasley there was only one young, very pregnant woman sitting at the table, Harry assumed that was Rose.

She looked up when he entered, smiling brightly, "you must be Harry, I've heard a lot about you, I must say I agree with Ginny."

"Agree with what?" Ginny asked, sitting down as well.

"He really does have the most beautiful eyes I've ever seen," Rose smiled wickedly, "turn around Harry, so I can see if she's right about your cute a-"

"Rose!" Ginny exclaimed her face burning as Ron burst out laughing and Mrs Weasley threw her daughter a scandalized look.

Harry quickly sat down to cover his embarrassment feeling his face heat up.

Rosa had already started eating and Harry stared as she wolfed down everything at an amazing tempo, beating even Ron with the amount of food she stuffed in her mouth.

When she saw Harry staring she swallowed and patted her enormous belly, "my boys are big eaters," she said happily, "you wanna feel?"

Without waiting for an answer she grabbed his hand and put it on her belly, Harry gasped when he felt the skin ripple as one of the baby's moved, "wow," he breathed.

"They're great aren't they?" Rose beamed, "I love showing off my tummy, although I'll be glad when I finally have my old figure back, I can't even put on my own socks these days!" She sighed frustrated, "the worst part is that my magic is very wonky, in the last months of a pregnancy the magic is often a bit unstable but I have it really bad," she turned her sorrowful eyes to Mrs Weasley, "I don't know how you managed this so many times."

"It is worse with twins," Mrs Weasley admitted, "and I was lucky to have a supporting h-husband behind me," she blinked furiously and quickly turned away her head, trying to hide the sudden tears that had come up, Ginny shot her mother a quizzical look but nobody else seemed to notice.

"So are you family from one of the Order members?" Harry asked curiously.

"Yes, my brother is a member, he refused to join unless they got me a safe place, I've got my own place upstairs but I prefer staying here so Molly can tell me everything she knows about raising twins."

"You never told us why you needed a save place so badly," Hermione said, "or what happened to the father of the twins."

Rose shrugged, "it's not really all that interesting." But when she saw everybody looking curiously at her, she relented.

"We were in the same year at Hogwarts, I fell in love with him when I was 16. We were supposed to get married as soon as we graduated but a couple of days before the wedding he found out I've been adopted by my parents and that my real mother is a muggle." Rose shook her head, "I've known him for years but never once did I notice that he believed all that crap about muggle's being inferior, apparently his whole family was of pure blood and he wasn't planning on tainting the bloodline by marrying a filthy halfblood." She laughed bitterly, "I felt so stupid for not realizing it sooner. The worst part though was when he somehow found out I was a pregnant, months later he suddenly appeared at my house, demanding that I got rid of my baby because he couldn't have a halfblood bastard child running around, that it would ruin his reputation. When I refused he threatened to kill me, to destroy my whole family and than he showed me his arm, the bastard had taken the dark mark! Can you believe that? The person I loved, whom I thought I knew better than anybody else had become a fucking death-eater!" She paused and took a deep breath to calm herself, "anyway, my brother showed up and he is an auror so he arrested my ex-fiancé, but my family was worried his family might still try something so my brother got me a place here." She shrugged, "personally I think it's all bit unnecessary but those purebloods are real fanatics, I guess it's better to be safe than to be sorry."

Hermione was looking a little teary-eyed, "that is so sad," she sniffled, "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked."

"It's really not that bad," Rose said, "I got over that bastard ages ago, mostly thanks to my boys. And Molly has really helped as well," she smiled at Mrs Weasley, "I've asked her to become my boys' godmother and Fred and George have both agreed to become their godfathers, that way they'll each have a child to spoil. I'm actually rather happy, the only thing that worries me is how I'm ever going to explain my boys why their father didn't want them, because I still don't fully understand it myself."


	8. Chapter 8

**Author notes:**

Sorry for the late chapter, was being difficult with uploading documents.

Many thanks to Sazza and Jayley for reviewing (twice!), you guys made my day! I think I actually squealed aloud when I saw Sazza's review, you like my writing style! Yay!

To Jayley: I did remember about the Snape thing, too late to change the entire plot though. I'm afraid Dumbeldore hasn't learned anything from his earlier mistakes in my fic.

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8. Black

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Harry jumped back from the shower when the water suddenly turned cold.

He slipped on the bathroom floor and flailed his arms around to steady himself, painfully colliding with the sink.

Grabbing his arm and glaring at the offending sink he resisted the urge to start cursing, he had already been in a bad mood before his shower and this was not helping.

He had been staying at Grimmauld place for several days now and was starting to wish he was back with the Dursley's.

He hated this place and not only because of the bad memories or the fact that no matter how many times they tried to clean the place it would still look as dirty and neglected as before.

Harry was certain the house was conspiring against him, it had started the first night he stayed in Grimmauld place: the bed Harry slept on suddenly got legs in the middle of the night and decided to take a little trip down the stairs, Harry still had bruises from that particular incident. The next day he had been attacked by three rugs, got bitten by a chair and tripped over several pieces of furniture that mysteriously managed to move in front of his feet. The doors were also working against him by suddenly closing while he was walking through it or by refusing to open. Mrs Weasley had been forced to put silencing charms on all the mirrors as they started screaming insults whenever Harry walked by and just this morning he had woken up with several slimy snake-like creatures in his bed. At first he thought it was all some elaborate prank from the twins, but they were constantly busy with their jokeshop and according to Hermione, it was actually quite common that a house where several generations of wizards lived in, got his own personality, although she had to admit it usually didn't actually have enough power to move things around. That personality was a mix from all the wizards that used to live in the house, so it only made sense that the house of the family Black had rather nasty and twisted sense of humor.

Harry opened the tap to wash his face and growled when another of those snake things crawled out.

Irritated he gave up and turned around to get dressed and stood eye to eye with a snake.

A very big, black snake.

Startled Harry backed away until his back hit the wall.

You fascinate me, the snake hissed, moving it's head in a strangely hypnotic way.

I do? Harry asked, taken aback.

The snake jerked it's head back and let out a thin black tongue, tasting the air, yesss, you definitely fascinate me.

Harry cast a wary glance at the snake, it was hanging from the ceiling and even though he could only see part of it, as it seemed to be coming through a hole in the ceiling, it still looked big enough to easily swallow the boy whole.

The snake slithered forward until it's head was almost touching Harry's nose, Harry was getting cross-eyed trying to look at it but he didn't dare to move.

There hasn't been a parselmouth in thisss house since 1912, the snake bobbed its head excitedly, why didn't you say sssay something sooner?

I didn't even know there lived a sssnake here, Harry wished he could reach his clothes, he felt very vulnerable this way.

I'm no snake! The snake hissed indignantly, I am Black, guardian of the family Black.

Right, not wanting to offend the snake, or guardian, Harry didn't ask what that was supposed to mean, well, nice to meat you Black, I'm Harry

I know you're Harry, Harry Potter, not Black, yet I feel drawn to you. It must be because you ssspeak my tongue.

Maybe we can talk later, Harry suggested hopeful, although Black didn't seem dangerous he would feel a lot better if he was wearing clothes and carrying his wand, I'm sssupposed to be at breakfast right now.

Very well, Black hissed disappointed, we will speak later, pleasssant hunting, Harry Potter.

With that the snake seemed to dissolve into shadowy smoke before disappearing entirely, leaving Harry gaping.

Harry poked at his food, not feeling very hungry at all, but as usual Mrs Weasley had mad far too much food. As she had given up on cleaning the house, all she could to pass the time was cook.

So she cooked.

All day long.

Harry was still a bit bemused from his talk with Black, it was obviously no ordinary snake, there had been no hole in the ceiling, Black had just gone right through it, like some sort of ghost.

He thought about asking Hermione about it, but she was once again bickering with Ron. She and Ron were almost always bickering these days, it was even worse than before.

The only thing they could do to pass the time was playing games, Harry was getting sick of playing exploding snap but even that was better than doing 'research' as Hermione wanted, she desperately wanted to find out what was wrong with Harry ad he tried to appreciate her concern. But there was simply nothing to find about it and it seemed a waste of time, even though Hermione kept insisting that more knowledge was always better he didn't see the point of knowing how to turn someone inside out through their nose, or how long you can put someone under cruciatus before they lose their minds.

Now and than Rose or the twins would come by, and one time Charlie stayed over for dinner, but most of the time it was just the four of them. Harry had asked Mrs Weasley about Remus as he had expected him to live at Grimmauld place as well but she just smiled sadly and changed the subject. This infuriated Harry more than anything, she was still treating him as a child and on top of that he was now really worried about Remus.

Harry hadn't heard anything from Dumbledore either, he still didn't know what was the deal about his mothers adoption paper or what happened to Hedwig, Mrs Weasley insisted she saw the dead bird with her own eyes, but the body had mysteriously disappeared. Harry was still convinced she was the real Hedwig, besides if Voldemort could get a spy inside Grimmauld place than surely he would use something better than an owl who supposedly died.

Snape hadn't shown his ugly face either, which was odd after Dumbledore's claim he needed to learn occlumency as fast as possible.

All in all Harry felt rather abandoned and pissed off, he had thought that after last year Dumbledore would stop leaving him in the dark constantly.

Fortunately Harry had only gotten one vision since he was at Grimmauld place and that happened in the bathroom so none of his friends had seen it. It also seemed as if the pain following the vision was not as intense as before, but it was hard to tell when his head felt like Voldemort was doing the tango on top of it. It was odd that the visions had suddenly lessened, before coming to Grimmauld place he had a vision every day, his only guess was that Voldemort could no longer reach him as he didn't know where he was.

"Harry dear, you really should eat more," Mrs Weasley said gently, "you're far too skinny."

Harry dutifully piled more food on his plate, ignoring the worried look Hermione gave him. He was getting rather tired of her constant are-you-sure-you-are-alright looks. Even Ron, who usually always treated Harry like he was normal, now suddenly acted like Harry was about to fall apart or something.

At least Ginny still treated him normally, in fact they were getting along better than ever before. If it wasn't for her Harry was sure he would have lost his mind completely.

After breakfast they all moved to the room Harry and Ron shared. They had fallen in a routine the first day: get up, breakfast, study, play games, study, lunch, study, games, study, dinner. Ron had insisted in gaming pauses in between and Hermione had eventually relented, that didn't stop them from arguing about it though and most times they were so fed up with eachother by the time dinner ended, either Ron or Hermione would blow up and leave in a huff, leaving the other to sulk. Harry and Ginny were used to it by now and always left as quickly as possible after dinner, hiding out in one of the many empty rooms the house had. Those evenings were actually the best times of the day. Harry wasn't blind to the knowing and delighted looks Mrs Weasley and Ron send them every time they spent time together, and even Hermione seemed to hint at a possible romantic relationship between Harry and Ginny.

It wasn't anything like that though, Ginny was just a great friend, someone he could talk to about everything but also could chose to stay silent without her pressing him to talk


	9. Chapter 9

**Author notes:** Finally my computer is working again! I was having a panic attack as I thought I would have to completely reinstall windows and me being not to bright never made any back-ups from my files. Thankfully it suddenly started working again, I had tried everything I could think of and was just pushing some random buttons on the keyboard while praying it wouldn't explode or anything, when it suddenly went back to normal. No idea what was wrong with it in the first place.

Anyway, my appologies for the long wait for this chapter, I was sick for a whole week and when I was finally doing better my computer acted up.

Once again I'm begging everyone reading this to just review! Come on people! It's not that hard! Even a short review will make me happy!**

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**9.Of gods and myths**

Harry sat down on the bed next to Ron and Ginny curled up against him on the other side, Hermione sat on the ground again, already absorbed in her book.

Ron sighed and stared forlornly at the books, looking like he'd rather pet Aragog, Hagrid's giant spider, than start reading. Ginny seemed to think the same thing as she started shuffling some cards.

They played three games, which Harry all lost, before Harry's cards exploded with a particularly loud "snap!", finally drawing Hermione's attention.

"Honestly!" She scowled, "it hasn't even been an hour since we started!"

She jumped up and Harry half-expected her to hit them or something, but instead she grabbed Harry's face and started rubbing it with a napkin out of her pocket.

"Wha..." Harry spluttered, "Hermione!"

"Hold still, Harry!" Hermione said sternly, "you've got root all over your face from that stupid game."

Resignedly Harry let her clean his face, feeling rather ridiculous.

"Soulmates?" Ron meanwhile read from the cover of the book Hermione had been reading, "you're still reading this crap!" He said appalled.

"It's _not_ crap, Ron! Did you know everybody has 7 soulmates instead of just one?"

"Well, yeah," Ron said shrugging, "everybody knows that, but the changes that you find even one soulmate is next to nil, let alone two or more. I don't think I've ever heard of three or more soulmates finding eachother."

"That's not true," Ginny disagreed, "remember the story mum used to tell us? About the Silva sisters?"

"That was a fairytale Gin," Ron scoffed.

"The muggles have fairytales about witches flying on brooms and making potions in cauldrons," Ginny pointed out, "lots of those stories are rubbish but there's still some truth inside."

"Even if it was true it was still more than 2000 years ago, and since than it has never happened again."

"What does it matter?" Harry impatiently interrupted the arguing siblings, "I don't see what is the big deal about soulmates."

"If two soulmates find eachother their magical powers are miraculously doubled, at least according to an old myth," Ginny explained and shrugged, "I don't really believe it, mum told us her parents were soulmates and I've never heard of them being extraordinary powerful."

"It's not really that simple," Hermione said, "but all the books I've read say it's possible. The story goes that in the very beginning, when the gods created the world, they made a copy of themselves and placed them on the earth as the very first humans. However they soon realized they had made a mistake, the humans were far too powerful, they had gotten the same powers as the gods but their minds weren't strong enough to handle that much power, they all went insane and in their hunger for more power they threatened to destroy the entire world. There was a very big war that caused the death of the biggest part of the first animals as the humans fought the gods so they could rule over the world. In the end the gods defeated them, but only because they, unlike the humans, were able to work together and bundle their powers. To make sure nothing like that would ever happen again the gods divided the souls of the humans in 8 pieces, dividing their power in the progress. The gods decided to stop meddling with the earth and let nature take it's course. So after thousands of years the humans were reborn on earth, thanks to the evolution process, but even now our souls are looking for their 7 counterparts to become whole again."

Hermione paused for a moment and Harry quickly took his change to say something, "I didn't even know wizards believe in gods."

"They don't, not really anyway. Some think that the gods are asleep and no longer bother to interfere with our lives, they believe they will wake up when they are given something very valuable, there's actually some sort of cult, I think it's in France, where they make sacrifices to the gods in the hope one of them will tempt the gods to wake up. For the most part the gods are forgotten though," Hermione sighed frustrated, "I couldn't find any information about them, not even their names or how many there were."

"Do you believe they actually exist?" Harry asked curiously, as he couldn't imagine her believing in something as vague as that.

Hermione hesitated, "I'm not sure really, it seems a bit unlikely but... Well, I used to think it was unlikely magic was real as well, so maybe..."

Ron rolled his eyes, "please, you don't even believe in the, what was it called? Crumple-Horned Snorwack."

"Snorkack," Ginny corrected, she had traded her spot on the bed for the floor and was now busy building a card-house, with her tongue out of her mouth in concentration.

"Whatever," Ron shrugged, "I'm just saying that it seems a hell of a lot more likely that they exist than those dumb gods, I've heard about that cult you're talking about, only nutty people join that."

Hermione glared, put her hands at her hips and took a stance that Harry recognized as an upcoming lecture sign.

"Well it doesn't really matter," he quickly said, "what were you saying about soulmates?"

Hermione huffed but dropped the subject, "if two soulmates would meet, recognize eachother, meaning they know they are soulmates, and love eachother unconditionally they can unite and become one. And no, Ron, I don't mean becoming one in _that_ way," she snapped at Ron.

"I didn't even say anything!" Ron protested loudly.

Hermione sniffed in a dignified way, "I saw you were thinking it."

"So if they become one their powers are doubled like Ginny said?" Harry asked.

"In theory, yes. Their souls merge together as do their powers, so they are doubled."

"But wouldn't their power only double when they're together?"

Hermione shook her head and furrowed her brow, trying to explain, "it's a bit like potions," they all shot her sceptically looks but she didn't notice, "there are 8 ingredients that, if put together, form a potion. But if you only put two of those ingredients together there is still an chemical, or magical reaction. Soulmates that have become one no longer have raw ingredients as soul but the beginnings of a potion that has twice as much power, even when not together."

"But you said 'in theory'," Harry said, "so has it actually ever worked before?"

"I don't know," Hermione admitted, "according to the books it has worked before, but their examples are all very old with very little proof or actual facts to back them up."

Ron snorted and rolled his eyes, "figures."

Hermione threw him a truly poisonous look and Harry and Ginny shared a look, it seemed they weren't even going to last until dinner this time.

"That is all very interesting, Hermione, but unless one of us runs in his or her soulmate it's not important anyway," Harry tried to distract her from her anger, giving Ron a warning look not to say anything stupid, he was not in the mood to listen to them fight.

"I've found some interesting things that might help us, that is if the whole thing actually works, I still need to do some more research. It has been classified as dark magic but as far see I could see there was no real reason for that, basically we could fool our souls into thinking we are eachothers soulmates but there might be some danger to it. I need to look it up once we are at Hogwarts, this library has no more information about it."

"Fool our souls?" Harry repeated in amazement, "so you're saying we could all become _four_ times as powerful?"

"If it works," Hermione warned him, "don't get your hopes up, but yes, we could be even16 times more powerful if working together."

"Wow," Ginny breathed, forgetting about her card-house that promptly collapsed, "nobody could possibly beat us then!"

There fell a silence as they stared at eachother, each contemplating the possibilities, Ron got a dreamy look on his face, "just imagine..." he sighed wistfully.

Hermione rolled her eyes, "honestly, having more power is useful but not _that_ great, and it's completely useless if you don't have the knowledge and experience to use it properly."

Ron opened his mouth to say something when he was interrupted by a sudden loud "BANG!" coming from outside the room.

Downstairs Mrs Black started screeching.


	10. Chapter 10

**Author notes: **

Nobody reviewed after my lost chapter! Nobody! You bad, bad readers, you! hmph.

This chapter is a bit better than the last, which was rather boring. And we get to see a lot of Weasleys.**

* * *

**

**10.Mothers...**

With a quick look at eachother they jumped up and ran outside where they collided with a furious looking Mrs Weasley. She paid them no attention but stormed at the twins room, when she found the door locked she got even more angered.

"FRED! GEORGE!" She screeched, banging on the door, "WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING!"

There fell a short silence as someone managed to shut Mrs Black up, while Mrs Weasley impatiently tapped her foot, glaring at the closed door.

Finally the door opened up a creak and a head was pushed through, followed by such an awful smell Harry quickly stepped back and covered his nose with his hand, fighting the urge to start puking. Hermione wasn't doing much better but Ron and Ginny were apparently used to it as their only reaction was a slight grimace.

Fred, or George, Harry couldn't tell as his face was covered with some sort of purplish root, said jovially to his mother, "hi mum!"

"DON'T YOU HI MUM ME!" Mrs Weasley screamed, "ARE YOU TRYING TO BLOW UP THE ENTIRE HOUSE! WHAT IF THE MUGGLES HEARD THAT BANG!"

"Bang?" Fred repeated, trying to look innocent and failing miserably, "what bang?"

Mrs Weasley looked ready to commit murder but at that moment an even louder "BANG!" echoed through the house shaking the walls and nearly rocking Harry off his feet. From the corner of his eye he saw Hermione falling into Ron, who promptly turned a violent shade of red.

"It worked!" Georges voice came from the room, just barely coming over Mrs Black renewed screeching.

"We did it!" His head appeared next to Fred and he blinked when he noticed his mother, "oh, hi mum."

The twins hastily stepped back when they saw their mothers expression. "Now mum," Fred gulped, "don't do anything rash."

Mrs Black fell silent again as Mrs Weasley closed her eyes and seemed to silently count to 10.

"You two are unbelievable," her voice was shaking slightly but she was no longer screaming and this, more than anything, seemed to frighten the twins.

"Your father and brothers are out there fighting You-Know-Who, risking their lives and their health and all you can think of are those stupid jokes! When are you two ever going to grow up? Those noises might have attracted the attention of the muggles, even the wards aren't fully capable to keep such loud sounds in. Did you ever stop to think about that?"

"We did put up a silencing charm on our room," George said defensively, and than a bit sheepishly, "I guess it didn't work."

"This isn't for some joke, mum," Fred said seriously, which was so out of character everybody stared at him.

"Yeah," George said, "we're actually trying to help the Order, or at least our family."

Fred dived back inside their room, giving Harry a glimpse of black rooted walls and purple tendrils of smoke floating at the ceiling before Fred returned and the door closed again.

Fred held up a length of what seemed to be brownleather.

"this is our new invention," Fred said, "we call it..." he paused dramatically and than he and George said simultaneous, "the Weasley protection super armor, the jumper that will save your live."

"This piece of cloth," Fred said.

"Can be fabricated into a fashionable jumper or jacket," George continued.

"It is designed to absorb and reflect nearly any offensive spell or hex."

"With this fancy little thing you no longer need to brush up your blocking skills."

"Get it now! Only 10 galleons for this lifesaving jacket."

"Unless you're a Weasley."

"Or a Granger, as she's practically married to Ron anyway."

"They're free of charges for the whole family."

"Except for Percy, 'cause he's a git."

"Absorb nearly any spell?" Hermione asked, "you mean like dragon-skin?"

The twins pulled indignant faces, "it's nothing like dragon-skin! That only absorbs part of a hex, so you still get hit only with less strength. With the Weasley protection super armor, or WPSA, the full force of the hex is absorbed and won't do any damage."

"The full force?" Hermione repeated, "I don't think that's is possible, especially not for that many hexes, every spell needs a different block to stop it. Did you test it?"

"Of course we tested it," Fred said insulted, "what did you think we were doing just now!"

"I mean, did you test it with real working offensive charms, those that death-eaters might use," Hermione said with more sharpness than she normally used when interrogating someone.

"Yes, Hermione, we did," George said just as sharply, "we're not some incompetent fools you know."

"Your silencing charm failed," she pointed out.

"Only because we were drunk at the time!"

"What do you mean you were drunk!" Mrs Weasley hotly demanded glaring at the twins.

"Drunk?" George squeaked, "did I say drunk? I meant... prank! We were playing pranks! The spell must have come out wrong because I was laughing so much."

"We can give a demonstration," Fred said, eager to change the subject, he wrapped the leather around George's torso and raised his wand.

"Petrificus totalus!"

But instead of George's chest the hex hit his head, causing him to stiffen and than slump sidewards.

"Oops," Fred grinned nervously at his glowering mother, "that was just to show you that I can indeed throw a decent spell."

He quickly used finitum on George, and ignoring his brothers complains tried again, this time hitting the leather.

Nothing happened.

"That's amazing," Hermione breathed, forgetting all about her earlier doubts, "what did you make it off?"

"Can't tell you that, Hermione, it's a secret formula."

"You said 'nearly' all spells," Ginny said, "I guess it doesn't work against the unforgivables?"

"We've tested every single hex we could think of," Fred said.

"Except the unforgivables," George added, "and some other dark spells we couldn't try out."

"Good thing you didn't," Mrs Weasley said briskly, "those are no spells you should ever use. One of the Order members can test it further I'm sure." Her gaze softened a bit, "I'm sorry for yelling at you two, even if it doesn't work against the unforgivables it's still an amazing feet you made this. It will certainly help all of us."

"Well that's a bit of a problem," Fred admitted, "there's something we need for the WPSA that is rather hard to get. We were lucky to get a whole load for a good price but if everybody in the family needs a complete suit there won't be anything left for the rest of the Order. We've already tried to find more but it seems nobody's got anything left of it."

"Everything alright there, mum? The twins making trouble again?" Bill grinned when his mother whirled around and gasped upon seeing him.

"Bill! You're finally back!" She rushed over to him but before she could embrace him she noticed the tired and crumpled looking man standing behind Bill.

"Arthur!" Mrs Weasley appeared breathless for a moment, but then she jumped forward and in one giant leap fell in her husbands arms, breaking down in big sobs that seemed to shake her entire body.

"You're back! You're back!" She cried in his chest, "I thought you were dead! oh thank Merlin! I thought you were dead!"

Harry glanced at Ron, Ginny and the twins who appeared just as stunned as he was by Mrs Weasley breakdown.

"What is she talking about?" Ron demanded Bill, "why would she think dad was dead, I though he was on some sort of mission for the Order?"

"I'll explain in the kitchen," Bill said, grinning at his father and mother who had now slided to the ground, Mr Weasley whispering nonsense in his wifes ear, "I think we better leave them alone for now."

For once the kitchen was filled with people, Harry recognized some of them from last year but most of them seemed to be new members. Tonks was trying to make tea while Charlie was trying to convince her not to. At the table sat a very shocked and pale looking professor McGonagall, but besides her everybody was looking rather happy and chattering madly about something, until they came in that is.

There fell a hushed silence as everybody stared at them.

"Can someone finally tell us what is going on!" Ron shouted, fed up with everything.

"Alright, people," Bill called, "time to leave."

One by one they all left, professor McGonagall gave Harry an intense unreadable look while walking past him, her normally tight bun was loose and her hair hang in greasy streaks in her face.

They all sat down at the table and stared expectantly at Bill.

"Dad really was on a mission, but something went terribly wrong. We could no longer contact dad and our own clock and Dumbeldore's instruments all stated he was dead." He told it all like he was simply talking about the weather and not the possible dead of his father. The other Weasleys all looked pale and shaken though.

"But he's not..." Ginny feeble protested.

Bill continued as if she didn't say anything, "that was a week ago, since then we've been trying to find out what went wrong and maybe locate dad's body."

Ron looked like he was going to sick up, "but he's not dead," he insisted, voice a little higher than normal.

"No, he's not dead, eventually we found him, alive and well, somehow our instruments were fooled."

"Why did nobody tell us this sooner?" George demanded, sounding actually a bit dangerous, "our father could be dead and nobody says anything!"

"Mum insisted you should not be told until we had proof that dad was really dead, she refused to believe it as long as she hadn't seen his body, she didn't want to worry you guys for nothing." Bill tried to explain, looking faintly apologizing, like he didn't really agree with her himself.

"Worry us for nothing?" Ron exclaimed, standing up with such a force his chair clattered on the floor, "it wasn't nothing! Mum thought dad was dead for a week and she just went on and pretended everything was fine! She treats us like we're little kids, we're not!"

"And George and I are of age, we would have joined the Order already if it wasn't for mum's constant fussing," Fred said, "we could have helped too!"

Bill sighed and rubbed his slightly dirty and unshaved chin, Harry only now noticed he looked really tired.

"Look, I know you would have liked to know, I would have too if the roles were reserved, but look at it this way: now you didn't have to go through an entire week thinking he was dead, you were all perfectly happy not knowing, it's no fun thinking someone you love is gone forever, trust me, I know."

This seemed to calm them down a bit, except Ron, who still looked furious and angrily kicked his fallen chair.

"Where did dad go to anyway?" Ginny asked, "what was he supposed to do?"

Bill hesitated slightly, "I'm not really supposed to tell."

At their glares he raised his hands in defense, "however, if you promise not to tell mum I think it is safe to give you some information. Dad was supposed to find a... some sort of weapon that might help in the fight against You-Know-Who. He... well, he didn't manage it obviously, he got into trouble and was locked up for a week, he wasn't hurt though so all in all he got rather lucky."

"What, the death-eaters didn't hurt him at all?" Ginny asked disbelieving.

"He wasn't captured by the death-eaters," Bill denied, "it was the...uhm... security system."

"The security system," George flatly repeated, "I'm getting the feeling you're deliberately being a bit vague about the whole thing, _brother_. Why can't you just tell us the whole story?"

Bill shifted uncomfortable on his chair and avoided their eyes.

"Yeah, why the big secrecy? It's not like we're going to run to You-, pardon me, Voldemort and play for tattle-tale." Fred added.

"Now, but some of you might run off and play for hero."

There fell a short silence after Bills words and Harry felt his stomach twist when he realized what he was talking about.

"I can't believe you just said that!" Hermione snapped, jumping up from her chair, "we never tried to 'play the hero', we were trying to save someone's life!"

"I know that, but you can't deny you guys end up in dangerous situations far too many times, and most of the time this is because of-"

_Me_, Harry thought miserably.

"you snooping around and finding out things you were never supposed to know, and always you try to solve it yourself instead of going to an adult for help. I don't want you to decide you can do better than dad and try and get that weapon yourself."

"We were just trying help!" Hermione said shrilly, "we never..."

Harry abruptly stood up and she fell silent, looking at him with big, worried eyes.

"I... I need to go. I need to go to the bathroom," Harry mumbled, hurrying out of the kitchen without looking at any of them.


	11. Chapter 11

**Author notes:**

Teehee! I'm so happy! -bounces around-

I've got my two reviewers back!

To Sazza: I admit I was just the tiniest bit worried you had lost interest, but please don't hurt your poor head! I can fully sympathize with internet or computer problems and I'm just glad you're back and still enjoying the story!

* * *

**11. Obliviate**

Harry took a deep breath as soon as he got out of the kitchen. Shaking slightly he quickly ran upstairs and dived in the room he and Ginny often hid out when Ron and Hermione were arguing again. Flopping on the couch he buried his head in his hands.

What the hell was wrong with him! There was no need to be this upset, what Bill had said actually rang true; he _did_ often lead his friends into danger, he _did_ always think he could save everyone. Hermione had even said so herself, claiming he had a saving-people thing. Arrogance, that was it, Snape was right, Harry really was arrogant.

"So this is the place you two always hang out," Harry looked up at that soft comment, when had Hermione gotten in?

"It's pretty nice," the girl walked forward, sitting down next to Harry on the couch.

"Yeah," Harry's voice came out all raspy sounding and he quickly cleared his throat, trying again, "yeah, it is, isn't it."

The room was rather small with only one candle to light it. There hang a portrait on the wall with a snoring guy on it, but Ginny had turned its face to the wall and covered it with a bedsheet for good measure, as the sound drove them both mad. The couch was old and nearly falling apart but they had put a nice looking blanket on it to cover that. The only other thing in the room was a moldy old carpet and a big standing clock, with seven hands and strange symbols instead of numbers on the face. There lived a small fury animal in the clock, that sometimes came out and scurried around in the room. Ginny insisted it was a mouse, but Harry had never seen a mouse with that much hair, let alone one with such a strange purple colored fur.

Still the room did look rather cozy and was a great place for hiding as the door was difficult to spot and most people just walked right past it.

"How did you know I was here?"

"Ginny told me," Hermione said simply, drawing her knees closer and holding them, "are you alright?"

"I'm fine," Harry snapped, "would be better if you just left me alone though."

"Too bad," Hermione said calmly, "I'm not going anywhere."

Harry risked a quick look at her, it surprised him she was being this calm, he had expected her to fuss over him and try to push him into 'talking about his feelings', at the very least he expected her to have plenty of comments on the matter.

As if reading his mind Hermione said, "Ginny made me realize I've been a bit of a bad friend lately, I'm trying to do better though."

"You haven't been a bad friend," Harry immediately denied, "did Ginny say you were?"

"No, but I can see you feel much more comfortable around her than me. You used to be able to confide in me, in both Ron and me," she gave Harry a sad look. "What changed, Harry?"

Harry blinked, unsure of what she wanted him to say, "uhm..."

But Hermione was already continuing, "I know things are different with Ginny, as your feelings for her are not the same as for us but..."

"I don't fancy Ginny," Harry sighed exasperated, "she just doesn't treat me like I'm weak."

"Neither do we!" Hermione exclaimed.

"Oh, yeah? Then why did you come here?" Harry challenged her, "I bet you thought I was going to break down or something. You are always checking up on me, always asking me: "are you alright?" He adopted a high-pitched voice to imitate her, "if you don't think I'm weak than why would you think I'm not alright? 'Cause guess what, Hermione _I'm doing fine._"

Hermione let out a tiny, soft "oh" and than fell silent, staring at her hands.

Harry sighed, "look, I'm sorry, you _are_ a good friend and I know you mean well and are just worried about me. Let's just forget it, alright."

He went to stand up and leave when Hermione suddenly grasped his arm and gave him an intense look.

"I don't think you are weak. You are anything but weak," she insisted, "but you are the kind of person that bottles everything up inside, so yes, I worry about you. I worry that you have real nightmares about everything that has happened to you, I worry Voldemort sends you nightmares to make it worse, I worry you feel guilty for what happened to Sirius. Most of all I worry you might try to push us away, to solve it all on your own, because you want to protect us, or for some other stupid reason. It has nothing to do with you being weak, it's because I love you."

Harry stared at her, momentarily stunned at her sudden declaration, he didn't think anybody had ever told him they loved him. He opened his mouth to say something but quickly closed it again when he couldn't think of anything, feeling uncomfortable warm he freed himself from Hermione's grasp and stepped away a bit. There was a slight burning behind his eyes, as if he was about to cry, which was of course ridiculous as he should be happy. He cleared his throat again and finally managed to get out the only right response, "I love you too."

>>>>>

"I still can't believe she managed to hide it. How could we not notice something was wrong?" Ron lay on his bed and stared forlornly at the ceiling, going over the past week in his head, trying to remember anything that might have given his mother away.

"Sure, she spend a lot more time in the kitchen than before but I thought that was just 'cause she was bored. She was the same as always, fussing over us and yelling at Fred and George."

"Give it up Ron," Ginny said exasperated, "you have been talking about it for ages, just accept the fact mum is a far better actress than we thought."

She was sitting on Harry's bed, rummaging through a box with old stuff from her.

Ron turned to face her, "but aren't you mad she never told us?"

Ginny shrugged, "not really, I think I would have done the same thing, no use in worrying everybody as long as you're not certain it is true," she grimaced when she found an old smelly sock in her box and threw it at Ron.

Dodging the sock easily he grabbed the nearest pillow and threw that at her, hitting her full on the face and making her drop the box on the floor.

"Oh great," Ginny snapped when the box fell upside down, scattering her stuff on the floor, glaring at Ron she went to pick them up, but her brother beat her to it.

"Why do you still keep all this rubbish?" He asked her, holding up her old baby pajama, he made a face at a rather wilted looking doll with only one leg and laughed at a crumpled, black burned toy lamb, "You even kept Laila! I thought you had thrown her away after I accidentally burned it."

Ginny hastily collected everything and stuffed in back in the box, "you're the one to talk, don't think I've forgotten Mr Fluffy."

Ron paled at the mention of his old toy.

"You carried it with you _everywhere_, even long after I stopped playing with Laila you still talked to it and offered it biscuits," Ginny said, grinning maliciousness, "so don't tempt me to tell this to Hermione or show her some nice juicy baby pictures of you."

"You're evil!" Ron accused.

"I know."

Ron lay back down on the bed, grumbling to himself about annoying baby sisters.

"Do you think Harry's alright?" He eventually asked after a long silence, "they've been away an awfully long time. Stupid Bill."

As if on cue, the door opened and a faintly embarrassed looking Harry stepped inside, followed by Hermione who appeared to have been crying.

Ron jumped up and was about to ask if they were alright when Ginny jumped up as well and stamped hard on his feet.

"Ow!" Ron yelled, rubbing his feet and glaring at his sister, "what did you-"

But Ginny gave him a warning look and talked right over his complain, "come sit down guys, I've got an idea. I remembered I had an old book lying around somewhere and I think we should try it out."

"Try what out?" Hermione asked curiously, sitting down next to Ginny.

"Try to become an animagus!" Ginny said exited.

"That's a bloody good idea!" Ron immediately said, getting exited as well, "we should have tried that years ago! Imagine those death-eaters faces if we would suddenly turn into a lion or something and crush them!"

Harry nodded, the idea of becoming an animagus definitely held a lot of appeal to him, and not only because of the advantage in a battle.

"That really is a good idea, but we don't have the ingredients here," Hermione said, "we can get it at Diagon Alley but we'll need to wait for that until we get our Hogwarts letter."

Ginny shook her head, "I know it's easier with a potion but it's not necessary, we can practice until we get those ingredients. Maybe we can make it work."

"How does it work anyway?" Harry asked, "I remember Remus saying it took my dad and Sirius years before they managed it."

"That was probably because they were really young when they started," Hermione explained, "it is much more difficult if your body is still growing, normally it takes about a year to fully complete the transformation once you've found your animal."

"To find this so called inner animal you need to find a way into your own mind," Ginny read aloud from the book she had found in her box, "this can be done by meditating and finding the inner balance needed for this. However for the untrained mind this is very difficult to manage and generally takes several years. Because of this William Prince invented the libermens potion which temporarily allows you to enter your mind and find your inner animal relatively easy."

"Than what's the point of trying it without using that potion?" Ron asked disappointed, "it will take years that way."

Ginny shrugged, "it's not like we've got anything better to do and maybe one of us can actually make it work."

"Besides, meditating is always good," Hermione added, "I've read a lot of books that say it clears your mind and helps you focus better."

"One of us will have to wait though," Ginny said, "according to the books there needs to be someone who keeps an eye out, in case something goes wrong."

"I will do that," Hermione volunteered, "now, everybody try to relax and close your eyes. Focus on your breathing, breath in, breath out, breath in, breath out. Control your breathing, try to slow it down. Slower and slower..."

Feeling a bit silly Harry followed her orders, letting her voice lull over him.

"Now listen to your heartbeat, _feel_ it. Focus on the sound and feel of your blood, streaming through your veins like a big river. You are that river... you are one with the river... don't try to fight it, just float along."

Slowly her voice faded away, and with that the whole world disappeared into nothingness.

>>>>>

"So now you know everything," Minerva said, sitting primly on her chair in Albus' office.

Albus stared out of the window, looking more tired and old than Minerva had ever seen him, but still there was a small sparkle of _something_ in his eyes. She liked to think it was hope, if only because it gave _her_ hope.

"What are you going to tell him?" She prompted him when he stayed silent.

"Nothing, for now."

"You can not possibly be serious!" Minerva exclaimed, sitting up straighter, "he needs to know!"

"This will put him even more danger," Albus said calmly, offering Minerva some tea which she angrily waved away.

"He is in danger whether you tell him or not," she snapped, "but if he knows he can use it to his advantage, if only he gets the change to learn."

Albus shook his head, sipping his tea, "there are things about this matter you are not aware off, I have my reasons, I won't tell him, and neither will you."

He moved faster than any tired, old man should allowed to, without even spilling his tea he got his wand out and threw a spell at the defenseless Minerva before she could even begin to comprehend what had happened.

"Obliviate."


	12. Chapter 12

**Author notes:**

I just found out I was apparently blocking any anonymous reviews, oops. -looks sheepish-

Anyway, it´s no longer blocked! So to all those people that were just dying to review but couldn´t: you can now review!

Many, many thanks to those that _did_ review, especially Sazza who alaways gives me such wonderful long reviews. And no I´m not planning on giving up on this story anytime soon, I´ve still far more ideas swimming in my head who need a way out, although it _is_ a bit frustrating to continue with so few reviews, really yours are what make it so much easier to keep going, so thanks.

This chapter wasn´t suposed to be a chapter at first, just a little scene really, but than it just got so long... I ¨probably have drawn it out to much to keep it interesting, but, oh well, enjoy anyway.

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**12. The house guardian**

>Wake up, man-boy,> the low voice hissing in his ear slowly woke Harry up.

He had the pleasant feeling as if someone was stroking him over his entire body, slowly and sensually. He sighed as the feeling intensified, making him feel as if someone was holding him.  
>I sssaid, wake up!>

There was the hissing again, the hold on Harry tightened and he unwillingly opened his eyes. He didn't want to wake up from this dream just yet, but his back hurt from lying on the hard ground.

Wait, why was he lying on the ground?

Groggily he tried to sit up, but something was holding him back.

>Finally,> Black hissed exasperated, >I thought you would never wake up.>

The snake had coiled its entire body around Harry in his attempt to wake him but was now slowly releasing him.

Harry was lying in his and Ginny's hiding room and he remembered vividly what had happened, even though he wished he didn't.

A vision.

The worst vision he'd ever had.

And this time he could remember every single last image he'd seen. He remembered the Christmas carols singing in the background and the big Christmas tree; filled with fake candles, fake snow and happy smiling little angels. It had been snowing outside, but inside there was a roaring warm fire. And yet he had been so cold, so, so cold he could feel it even now. Most of all he remembered the voice, the voice he had once foolishly called lovingly, but was really anything but.

And he was starting to realize it was not a vision, it was a memory.

A memory of something he had long since forgotten, but for some reason was now returning to him.

There were still a lot of black holes, like when it happened and of course what exactly happened, as he still had no idea, just a vague feeling it was something very, very bad.

>Are you feeling better?> Black asked, hovering over Harry uncertainly.

>I'm fine,> Harry mumbled, standing up slowly.

He wasn't fine, no matter what Hermione said about the benefits of meditation it had only brought Harry trouble. Since their so called animagus training his nightmares that had left him alone ever since he'd arrived at Grimmauld place had suddenly returned, even worse than before. And now this stupid vision, memory thing.

>I've observed humans for many yearsss, yet I've never seen sssomeone just collapse like that,> you must be ill, Black insisted.

>I guessss I am,> Harry shrugged, >don't know what it is though and I can't do anything about it either.>

Walking over to the couch he picked up his chess-set lying there, which was the reason he was there in the first place; Ron had challenged him to a game of chess and although Harry didn't particular like getting slaughtered by his best mate, there wasn't really anything better to do. So he had went to get it from the room where he'd last played with Ginny, when he suddenly collapsed.

>I'll better get back before Ron ssstarts looking for me,> he murmured, more to himself than to Black. But when he turned around to leave the big snake was blocking the door, looking threatening.

>I don't like being ignored, human,> he hissed, narrowing his eyes dangerously, >you said we would talk later, it isss now many daysss later, yet you want to leave already? I don't think ssso.>

Harry blinked, a bit taken aback by Black's sudden forcefulness, he wasn't afraid though, for some reason he trusted the snake not to harm him.

>I'm sssorry, I didn't mean to ignore you really, I was just kinda busy with other ssstuff. I didn't know you were that desperate to talk to me...>

>I'm not desperate,> Black snapped indignantly, >however, I haven't had a decent conversation with anyone sssince Darius, and he died nearly a century ago, so, I sssuppose you can say I'm a bit…, hrm,> Black lowered it's tone, >lonely.> The snake's glittering black scales seemed to darker to an even blacker black, and although Harry couldn't say for sure, it seemed like Black was blushing.

"Harry? What the hell is taking you so long"

Harry started at Ron's sudden voice coming from the hallway.

"Harry? You around here somewhere?" Ron called, and than softer to himself, "where is that bloody room of his"

Black snarled something unintelligible and for a brief moment Harry thought he saw his eyes glowing with an eerie purple colour.

"Harry?" Ron was starting to sound a bit concerned and Harry sighed, he didn't even know why he was reluctant to let Ron know about Black, he should just tell him he was there.

"Harry! Whe-AAAAA"

Harry jumped and automatically reached for his wand at Ron's scream and it's abrupt cut off. "Ron?" He shouted trying to push Black out of the way and open the door.

But Black wouldn't budge.

>No need for panic, he isss quite unharmed.>

Harry gripped his wand tighter and levelled it at Black, even while knowing the snake probably couldn't even be affected by a spell.

>What the hell did you do to him!>

>I'm sssimply giving him a bit of a tour trough the house, a detour if you will. I didn't want him to interrupt usss.>

>A detour? How,- What are you anyway?>

>I was once a sssimple house guardian, until Darius Black gave me a form and intelligence ssso I could keep him company.>

Like Harry knew what a house guardian was.

At Harry's frustrated look Black clicked his tongue disapprovingly, >don't they teach children anything these daysss? A house guardian is a persssonality of a house, many pureblood's homes have a guardian, although none quite as ssspecial as me of course. Like I said, Darius lived on hisss own so he created me and gave the form of a sssnake as he was most proud of his ability to ssspeak sssnake-language.>

Harry narrowed his eyes, >so you're the one that made my life miserable before by making the furniture move?>

>Yesss!> Black said, happy he had caught on, >and I've just opened a hole under your loyal sssidekick's feet where he fell through, ssso he is now crawling through a narrow tunnel. He isss not too happy about that, but, like I said, he isss unharmed, so you can ssstop pointing that pathetic little ssstick at me.>

Reluctantly Harry lowered his wand, >there wasss no need for that, he grumbled, Ron wouldn't have told anyone about you.> He paused after his own statement, slightly surprised he'd said that, why would he think Black cared about people finding out about him?

>Maybe not, but I wanted to talk to you undisssturbed.>

>Well, now you've got me where you want, so talk.>

Black let out a long suffering sigh, >figures the first parselmouth to enter thisss house in years turnsss out to be a rude, obnoxious gryffindor.>

>If you don't like it I can always just leave,> Harry snapped feeling insulted, was it that obvious he was a gryffindor?

>And I can just ssstart with my little gamesss again,> Black threatened, >last time things stayed relatively harmlessss, I assure you I can do a lot worse.>

Harry grimaced, >why did you have to pick on me anyway?> He whined, >why not one of the order-membersss?>

>As sssoon as you stepped inside me I was drawn to you. I told you as much didn't I? I wanted to get your attention, see what you would do, how you would react. That isss why I showed myssself to you, consider yourself fortunate, I haven't shown myself to anyone besides Dariusss.>

>Ah, yesss,> Harry muttered sarcastically, >lucky me.>

>I have to admit though,> Black said, sounding far too pleased in Harry's opinion, >I did rather enjoy myssself, it was terribly amusing seeing your dumbstruck face as your bed took a midnight ssstroll.> He let out a odd hiss which was probably the snake version of laughter.

Harry glared at him and, deciding he might as well make himself comfortable until Black got bored of him, flopped down on the couch.

>Why did you feel drawn to me in the first place? It can't be because of the parssselmouth thing, last year you never bothered me.>

>Mm, true,> Black agreed, inclining his head, >I wouldn't know why, to be honest, and I don't really care either. You mussst realize this can work in both our favoursss, you can keep me company and in turn I can provide you with information from that sssilly bird-order.>

>How would _you_ know any information?> Harry asked suspiciously.

The look Black shot him scarily reminded Harry of Snape's infamous you-are-a-blithering-idiot-not-even-worth-a-detention glare.

>They are holding these meetings _inside_ me, human. This houssse is my body, the rooms, the furniture, even the paintingsss are all part of me. I can feel you sitting on me right now, I feel _everything_ happening inside me. There is a nest of rat zingers with sssix babies behind that wall, young Mr Weasley is ssstill crawling through my hastily fabricated tunnel and is at the moment loudly cursssing the higher beings and your two female friends are having _another_ discussion about you, I could tell you what they are sssaying but I don't think you want to know. Trust me, human, there isn't a sssingle thing going on in this house without me knowing.>

>They're having a discussion about me?> Harry repeated in dismay.

>Yesss, did you happen to hear anything else I sssaid, or is that all your feeble mind can remember?>

Harry gave him an indignant glare and hmphed, >I guess it's alright, I don't mind talking to you now and than, and if you really could get me sssome information… yeah.>

>Wonderful,> Black hissed, sounding truly pleased, >I will sssee you later than.>


	13. Chapter 13

**Author notes:**

I have vacation! Yay!

With plently of spare time I got a whole chapter finished _already_ so I thought I´d give it to you to celebrate free time! No school! Yay!

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13. In the dawn of an eclipse…

X

XXX

X

It wasn't until Harry was back in his room, clutching his chess-set, that he remembered Ron.

He was about to call for Black when the door opened and a unrecognisable Ron stepped in.

He was covered in dust, his hair, face and clothes were now a dull grey-brown colour and with every movement he spread a cloud of dust that made Harry's nose and throat itch uncomfortable.

"You're here!" Ron accused loudly, stepping fully inside, leaving brown footsteps behind him.

Harry didn't get a chance to say anything as Ron rattled on, "you were taking so long I went to look for you, Ginny had told me where that room was but I couldn't find the bloody door. And than I suddenly fell through the floor and there was no way to get back up!" Ron raised his arms in a-can-you-believe-that-motion and let them fall to his sides with a plof, creating a thick dust-cloud that for a moment completely hid Ron from sight.

Ron's voice was starting to sound slightly hysterical, "and I crawled and crawled and crawled and there were lots of spiders and other creepy insects and and," he paused to took a deep breath, "I'm gonna take a shower now, a _long_ one."

Harry shook his head, Black sure was a maliciously bastard; why couldn't he have created a dust and spider-free tunnel?

"Hey," Harry called to Ron's back, "you still wanna play chess?"

"Definitely, I need the ego-boost."

After taking a long shower and soundly beating Harry 4 times and well on his well to a fifth time, Ron was starting to forget the whole traumatic experience and was grinning like a moron.

"Say," he suddenly asked Harry while his knight killed off one of Harry's pawn in a particular brutal way, "what _was_ taking you so long anyway, to get your chess-set."

"I was talking to a snake," Harry said absentminded, brow furrowed in concentration as he studied the board.

"A snake?" Ron repeated incredulously, "an actual snake? Oh great, now I'm gonna have nightmares about snakes strangling me in my sleep, I just know it."

"You're scared of snakes?"

"No!" Ron said indignantly, "but I can't say I like them either, I'm surprised you talked to one, I mean after the basilisk and the snake that attacked dad… Are you sure it is safe? Maybe it's a spy from You-Kn-"

"Call him Voldemort," Harry interrupted him, finally making his move.

Ron grinned for a moment, "that wasn't a very smart move," ordering his bishop forwards, he said triumphantly, "check!"

Harry groaned silently, staring at the pieces in despair, he could see no way out.

>Move your pawn.>

Harry startled so badly at the sudden hiss he jerked his knee upwards, nearly knocking over the entire board and rocking the white queen off her feet, causing her to roll off the board, all the way loudly cursing and screaming.

Clutching his heart Harry glared at Black, >DON'T DO THAT!> He shouted, or at least hissed as hard as possible, which wasn't very hard all things considered. >Jeez! You nearly ssscared me to death!>

>Bah,> the snake snapped, moving upwards over Harry's arm, >it isss not my fault humans are that weak>

"Merlin, Harry! When you said snake I thought it would be a small one, that thing is huge!"

Harry blinked surprised and than quickly hid a small smile, actually, Black was at the moment much smaller than before, apparently he could also change his size.

Black had now climbed up to Harry's head and was now coiling itself around the boy's neck, his tongue tickling Harry's ear.

"Are you sure that is safe?" Ron asked worriedly, "what if it suddenly decides to hurt you?"

"It's fine, Ron," Harry said, wondering if he should explain to his best mate that Black didn't need to be anywhere near him to hurt him, but decided against it. no need to freak out Ron any further.

"Why did you bring it here?"

"His name is Black, and he was a bit lonely."

Black tightened his hold on Harry, giving him a dismayed look.

"Yeah, well, I'd rather not have him stay in the bathroom," Ron said, shuddering a bit, "and that is _not_ because I'm _scared_, I just don't like it."

>Tell that simpleton that if I wanted him dead I could think of far more creative ways to kill him than ssstrangling,> Black snapped.

"What did it say?"

"Uhm, that you don't have to worry as he won't hurt you," Harry quickly said, ignoring the dark look Black shot him.

Ron didn't look convinced but he picked up his queen and put her back on her spot, "it's your turn."

Naturally Harry lost again, but with the help from Black he did manage to make it rather difficult for Ron, and their next game he just sat there and translated Black's orders to the check-pieces.

"You are cheating, Harry!" Ron laughed after he lost for the very first time since he'd started at Hogwarts, "but I don't mind, really, finally a worthy opponent! Who would think snakes could play chess anyway?"

X

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X

Tendrils of light curled and twisted as snakes along his pale hands, the wind whispered of happenings far, far away as it caressed his skin in a mockery of love-making, he was getting closer… The strange dance of light, air and water sped up, the movements getting wilder, nearly out of control as he neared the climax. So close… Almost…

There was a sudden hiss and than the tendrils snapped and the magic shrivelled, died down like a marionette where the cords were suddenly cut. The wind fled, and with it the light as the room was plunged into darkness.

He gasped, eyes flying open in surprise and pain at the sudden cut off, he hadn't thought She'd come…

He desperately tried to see anything, he hadn't seen Her for so long…

But this wasn't the usual darkness, this wasn't just the absence of light, this was the real darkness, darker than dark, blacker than black. The suffocating dark blanket that covered you as child, when you were alone and frightened, the kind that held monsters, both true and imaginary.

He shuddered, he'd always hated the darkness, and She knew this, She used his weakness, used it against him! Had She really come to hate him this much?

He blindly groped for a candle but his hands were shaking too much, merging always tired him out and She had interrupted him at a vital point.

Clenching his fists he snarled, why couldn't She understand?

Orange eyes glowed in the darkness as She came closer and for a moment he felt tempted to give in, thankfully it passed quickly.

"Leave!" He rasped, finally finding his voice.

She let out another hiss, more of a growl this time.

And than suddenly the room was no longer dark, light had returned.

She was gone once again.

He quickly pushed away the small feeling of regret, it was better this way. He had to prepare for the eclipse, it was nearing and he had already lost too much time.

"What in Nimue's name are you doing, you fool!"

He glared at the old woman who had appeared in the doorway, "you stay out of this!" He snapped, standing up with difficulty. On reflex he reached for his medallion, remembering too late it was no longer there. Gryff! How could he be so stupid! He tried to hide the movement, but she'd always been far too skilled at reading him.

"Hah!" She exclaimed accusingly, "you miss her! Admit it!"

"Shut up, old hag! I'm not admitting anything to you! You are a traitor!"

"Me? Hah! You are the traitor here! And we all know it! Why do you think Lynn left you in the first place?"

He faltered for a moment, "I… She… She didn't…"

Her gaze softened, "Drust…"

"No! Leave it. You talked to the wizards, dark wizards! You betrayed everything we stand for, you betrayed us."

"If you truly believe that you never fully understood what we stand for in the first place," she stated softly, stepping closer. She had that look in her eyes, that look she normally saved for Aneiris… But he wouldn't give in, he wouldn't.

He abruptly turned his back on her.

X

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X

Harry awoke with a start, looking wildly around. Everything was silent, peaceful even, why had he woken up that abruptly? Calming his racing heartbeat he tried to shake of the feeling that something was wrong. Something was off.

It was silent, too silent. Where was Ron's snoring?

Harry sat up slowly, staring into the dark room trying to discern Ron's figure. Black loudly complained at being woken up so rudely. The snake was still attached to Harry's arm, he was starting to suspect Black was not so much desperate for a conversation as that he was starving for bodily contact.

He could hear Ron's breathing now, but it sounded uneven, panting, like Ron was walking the marathon instead of lying in his bed. Probably just a dream, Harry told himself, he didn't even know why he was making a big deal of this, nothing was wrong.

"Rhm, no… gn, I…" Ron started to mutter unintelligible, his breath hitching.

Maybe… Harry hesitantly came out of bed, going faster when Ron started to sound really distressed.

"No, no! Fail… tme … No!"

"Ron! Ron, you're having a nightmare!" Harry hissed, carefully shaken Ron, "Ron, wake up!"

"NO! HARRY! NO! NOOOO!" Ron sat up so suddenly he nearly knocked heads with Harry.

For a moment he looked around in panic, than he sagged on the bed.

"Stupid dream," he muttered, covering his face with an arm.

"Erm," Harry said hesitantly, "you, eh, wanna talk about it?" He felt a bit stupid for asking, especially because _he_ wouldn't have wanted to 'talk about it' if the roles were reversed.

Ron stayed silent for a long time and Harry was starting to think he'd fallen asleep again when hestarted talking.

"It's a pretty stupid dream, you know, the kind that everybody has, I'm being chased by some kind of monster in this big maze. It's mostly the end that freaks me out. When the monster catches me everything turns dark and than I hear a voice saying:

Darkness is nearing, mortal

The dark king is gathering his forces

Time is running out

In the dawn of an eclipse

The gates of hell will open

And all life will be thrown into eternal night

Now all hope is upon you, mortal

Do not fail us

As even the gods cannot save you this time"

Ron finished in a hollow voice that gave Harry the creeps, for a moment it reminded him eerily of Trelawnley when she gave him one of her few true prophecies at the end of his third year.

"I know it's probably nothing, just a stupid dream. But it always goes exactly the same, so…"

"You've had this dream before?"

"Yeah, for a couple of days now, every night it's pretty much the same. It started after that day dad returned."

"After the first time meditating?"

"Yeah, say, you don't think that has anything to do with it, do you?" Ron suddenly asked, sitting up straighter.

"I don't know," Harry sighed, "maybe you should tell Hermione…"

"No way, it was just a dream," Ron quickly backtracked, "I was overreacting, I mean I was nearly starting to think it was some sort of actual prophecy!"

Ron quickly fell back to sleep after that, apparently reassured.

Harry wasn't though, he lay silently in bed, pondering the meaning of the words. _Darkness isnearing…_Well, that part was true alright, the whole_ all live will be thrown into eternal night _sounded a bit exaggerated, but then again, who knew what Voldemort had up to his sleeve?

Just before he fell asleep he suddenly remembered the name Ron had shouted while sleeping, why would he call for Harry in his nightmare…?


	14. Chapter 14

**Author notes:**

Sorry for the late update, I´ve been busy with real life stuff and didn´t feel much like writing in the few free moments I had.

Oh and many thanks to dreamer who pointed out a terrible stupid and embarrassing mistake. Apparently I have been spelling "Dumbeldore" ever since the first chapter. -beats head on the table- So, so stupid! I was all like: of course I know how to spell Dumbledore, I´ve read enough fanfics, I don´t need to look it up... -feels incredibly stupid-

Anyway, I should have fixed it by now, if I´ve missed one though, please let me know. And my appologies to anyone who was bothered by it.(I would have been)

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14. Good news, bad news

"Weeeee!" Harry awoke with a start at the loud shrieking, staring in bewilderment as something big and brightly coloured bounced across the room.

Grabbing for his glasses he put them on just on time to see the impending danger.

"Tonks, watch out for-"

"Crash!"

Harry winced as Tonks tripped over his chess-set, still lying in the middle of the room, and fell flat on her face.

Ron sat up with a start at the sudden loud noise, waving his arm wildly while shouting "death-eaters!"

He blinked when he saw Tonks lying on the floor, the white queen poking her face while squeaking "get off my husband!"

With a bit difficulty Tonks managed to get up, her hair was showing all colours of the rainbow and as she regained her bounciness it started flashing from one colour to another, making Harry a bit dizzy.

"Tonks?" Ron asked, yawning widely, "wacha doing?"

At that question Tonks started jumping around like a demented, sugar high, rainbow coloured frog, all the while squealing loudly.

"You're not gonna believe this! I'm getting married! Can you believe that? I'm getting married! Tee hee! I'm getting married!"

"Erhm, congratulations," Harry offered.

"Yeah," Ron echoed, while hastily scooping up the check pieces to save them from getting trampled, "congratulations."

"Thank you!" Tonks gushed, bounding over to Harry and giving him a big, sloppy kiss on the cheek and then did the same by Ron.

"I'm gonna tell the others the news! I'm getting married! Bye!"

She turned around, tripped over the chess-set again but this time managed to retain her balance, and ran out.

Ron was looking a bit dumbstruck at being kissed by a girl, so early in the morning no less. Then he took one look at the clock, groaned something like "too early" and went back to sleep.

X  
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X

The kitchen was filled with people, many of whom Harry didn't know. Everybody was laughing and talking loudly. On the middle of the table lay a big pink coloured blob, which Harry assumed was supposed to be a cake.

He made his way over to Rose who seemed to fill the entire room just by herself and looked like she couldn't possibly grow any bigger without exploding.

"Hia, Harry!" She happily waved at him, "cake?"

"Erhm…" Harry stared sceptically at the weird coloured goo lying on the plate she offered him.

"It doesn't taste as bad as it looks really," Rose said, taking a bite herself, "when Aaron told me he was gonna propose to Tonks I decided on baking a cake to celebrate, but, well, I'm not too skilled at cooking yet."

"Who's Aaron?" Harry asked curiously, he had been wondering who was Tonks fiancé before.

"You haven't met him yet? Oi, Aaron! Get your ass over here!"

The man walking over to them nearly took as much space in as Rose, not because he was fat or anything, but he was very tall and broad.

There was an air around him that commanded attention, somehow making him seem even bigger than he actually was.

"This is Aaron, my baby-brother," Rose introduced him, and everybody had to smile at that, Aaron was anything but baby-like. "And this is my friend Harry, Aaron."

Aaron smiled lopsided, "nice to meet you, Harry, Dora has told me a lot about you."

"Dora?" Rose repeated incredulously, "she let's you call her Dora now?"

"Well, Tonks won't be her name for much longer will it? It will change to Nymphadora Carter pretty soon. So I thought I better prepare her for that," he let out a small grin, "I don't think she likes it much though."

Rose grabbed her brother's arm and hugged it close to her enormous belly, staring up adoringly at him.

"So tell me, how did you propose? Was it romantic? Did you get on your knees? Come on, I wanna hear all the juicy details."

Aaron laughed lightly, using his free hand to playfully ruffle Rose's hair, "no way, sis, it's none of you business."

"Aw," Rose pouted, "why not? You heard Julian's proposal."

"I hardly call that a proposal, he just suddenly announced to the whole world you were going to get married, without even asking you."

Rose was saved from replying to that as the volume in the kitchen suddenly rose tenfold as Tonks bounced in. She was immediately cornered by people wanting to congratulate and hug her. Behind her Hermione and Ginny came in, walking over to Harry.

"Isn't it great?" Ginny said excitedly, "I don't think I've ever seen Tonks this happy, she is practically glowing!"

It took a while before things calmed down but eventually people started leaving and Mrs Weasley and the twins got enough room to prepare breakfast.

Unfortunately Harry had managed to seat himself between Mr Weasley and some bloke called Gerrit, who were loudly discussing the many uses of a coat-hanger and made it impossible for Harry to follow the conversation of his friends sitting across him.

Just as he ducked to avoid getting his head bashed out by Gerrit's elbow, who was enthusiastically demonstrating how a coat-hanger could be used to scratch your back, he overheard Charlie, who was sitting on Mr Weasley's other side, saying something.

"-ing tortured, I'm sick and tired of it, Bill, don't know how much longer I'll last."

Interest piqued, Harry leaned forward to hear more, but Mr Weasley's loud laughter drowned out Bill's response.

"I know!" Charlie snapped, "but I haven't gotten anywhere, all I've found out is that Greengrass knows more, but he doesn't trust me."

"Well, what about Lynn? Did s-"

"You're Harry Potter, aren't you?"

Harry nearly jumped out of his skin at the sudden question, Gerrit had left and in his place sat a girl about Harry's age.

He took a quick look at Bill and Charlie, but they had heard the girl as well and had lowered their voices.

Defeated Harry sagged on the chair, he had been hoping he would finally get some information. Maybe Black would know what they were talking about.

"So, are you?" The girl asked again.

"Yes," Harry snapped irritated, but she wasn't deterred by his bad mood.

"That's great," she gushed, clasping her hands, "I've wanted to meet you for ages! Can I have your autograph?"

Momentarily caught of guard Harry stared at her, she had long very light blond hair and blue eyes, she was rather pretty, but in a strange forced way.

"My autograph?" He repeated bemused.

She flushed, "oh! I'm sorry, Ron told me you don't like people bothering you for stuff like that, I just got so excited at finally meeting you!" She giggled embarrassed.

"You know Ron?" He didn't think he'd ever seen her at Hogwarts.

"Oh! How rude of me, I'm Heather Merryton, my daddy is in the Order, see? He's over there." She pointed at a man who was having an intense but quiet discussion with Moody in a corner, Harry vaguely recalled seeing him before.

"Isn't breakfast ready yet?" Ron finally entered the kitchen, yawning and still wearing his pyjama, "I'm starving."

When he noticed Heather he turned a brilliant shade of red, jumping back and trying to cover his pyjama, or at least the little yellow ducks on it he stammered something unintelligible and hastily fled back upstairs.

Heather giggled in that annoying way again, "Ron can be so silly sometimes, but he is really sweet too, don't you think so?"

She didn't wait for an answer but continued to gush over Ron while staring dreamily at Rose's belly.

Harry looked over at Hermione, wondering how she was taking all this. She wasn't looking very nice at Heather, in fact, had looks been able to kill, Heather would have turned into a little pile of ash by now.

Oddly enough Ginny wasn't looking all that pleasant either, nor were any of the other females present in the kitchen. It seemed only Tonks was unaffected, but seeing as she was too absorbed by Aaron to notice anything else, she didn't count.

Ron returned pretty soon, wearing normal clothes this time. For his claim to be starving he paid very little attention to the food. Instead he stared at Heather while telling her some story which was apparently terribly funny as Heather couldn't stop giggling. From the corner of his eye Harry saw Hermione bristle.

"Ron," Ginny suddenly broke into their conversation, "are you nearly finished eating? We want to go upstairs."

"Oh!" Heather gasped, "can I come too?"

"Sure," Ron happily agreed, apparently not noticing Ginny's and Hermione's murderous gaze.

"No. She can not come." Ginny bit out.

"Why not?"

"We are going to work on the project. You know, the _secret_ project," she gave Ron a meaningful look.

"I can keep a secret," Heather said, looking hopeful at Ron, "really, I can!"

"I'm sure you can," Ginny said, although her face told a different story, "but it might be dangerous, we wouldn't want you to get hurt."

"A secret, dangerous project that might get someone hurt. Now, why don't I like the sound of that?" Moody suddenly said, leaning dangerously over Ginny's shoulder.

Mr Merrryton appeared as well, looking disapprovingly at them, "come along now, Heather, you better leave them alone.

"But daddy!" She fruitlessly protested as he steered her out of the kitchen.

"So." Moody said, staring with both eyes at Harry, "tell me about this _project_."

X  
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X

"How many?"

He was too young to have to answer that question, the man noted. He couldn't be much older than 15, tall and gangly, like all teenagers, with a split lip and a swollen, red nose. Not fit to count their dead.

"Well?" He demanded, when the boy stayed silent.

"Two, father."

He closed his eyes, another two more to their rising loses, two more they couldn't afford to miss.

"Who?"

"Rufus and…"

He opened his eyes again, Rufus had been a child, just barely 13 years old, far too young to be out, but they had had no choice. And no matter how terrible to think so, it was better to lose an inexperienced child than one of the older, stronger ones.

"And?"

The boy swallowed, a lone tear falling down his cheek, "Fila, father."

Gryff! No wonder the child was upset, Fila was, had been the best; wise, powerful and with a kind heart. One of her main responsibilities had been to take care of the many orphaned children. She made sure they didn't fall apart, she offered them love and support in a time nobody else could be bothered. She was, gryff! _had been_ a pillar of strength for everyone. And now she was gone.

He stood up and started pacing around in the small, bare room.

"What is your name, son?"

"Gwennius, father."

"After the first father, heh? Your parents must have had high expectations of you."

Gwennius stayed silent, no doubt one, or maybe both of his parents had died in this war. Although you couldn't really call it a war, they were getting slaughtered and had no means of fighting back. Only one last resort… He'd sworn, he would sooner die than use it, but this wasn't about _his_ life anymore…

He sighed, he needed Drust here, the advisor normally always had an answer for everything, but lately he had been absent at meetings, too busy doing Idath knew what. The old man claimed he was working on a solution, but they were running out of time, and it seemed Drust was starting to lose his sharp mind ever since Lynn had disappeared.

"What would _you_ do?" He suddenly asked Gwennius.

Nimue! He had been reduced to asking advice to a child!

Gwennius bit his lip, "I guess I would make a pact with the wizards, father."

"Yes, yes of course you would say so."

The boy wouldn't be the first of the youngsters to suggest it, as it seemed their only option. But the elders were impossible to convince, they still carried their hatred and distrust for all things wizardry, even after all those ages.

"Which side?"

"Father?"

"Which side of the wizards would you pick, son? I don't think it is very wise to make a pact with both of them."

"The winning side, father."

He laughed at that, cheeky brat, "but which is the winning side?"


End file.
